


Sympathy for the Devil

by SoulSurvivor_36



Series: The Lives We Make for Ourselves [13]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Attempted Rape/Non-Con, Demon!Dean, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, F/M, Gore, Graphic Description, Men of Letters Bunker, Mental Anguish, Mental Breakdown, Mental Instability, Sexual Abuse, Threats of Rape/Non-Con, Torture, Unrequited Love, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-04
Updated: 2019-06-09
Packaged: 2019-08-17 14:48:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 20
Words: 102,763
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16518518
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SoulSurvivor_36/pseuds/SoulSurvivor_36
Summary: Following the discovery that Dean is possessed by a demon, Delilah becomes desperate to find Sam, convinced that something terrible has happened to him.  She's not the only one seeking out the Winchesters though... who else is after them on the path of revenge?





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hey y'all!  
> So as promised at the end of the last part of this series, I'm going off canon here, "fixing" some of the things that have annoyed me for years now whenever I watch season 10. So buckle up for some dark divergence, let's fuck up some shit, yeah?  
> This particular story spans the reign of Demon!Dean, so 10.01 Black to 10.03 Soul Survivor (Yes... that's where I got my handle... I love that episode... and Jensen directed it... and I'm rambling *Clears throat*)  
> I started writing this one back in May, it's still not close to finished, but I've decided to post what I have so far, and more will come, I promise.  
> Remember to follow the series to receive e-mail updates of new chapters and stories!  
> Read, enjoy, comment, share!  
> Love you guys!  
> -SoulSurvivor_36-

_Please allow me to introduce myself…_

It has been a long time coming.  Years of moving from one place to another, each more disgusting and abusive than the last, each better than the next until he finally realized that even life on the street would be a better situation than some of these “group homes” and institutions.  Dens of pain and deceit, more like.  Since becoming lost in the “system,” he’d been beaten, abused, yelled at, insulted, he was told that he was worthless and a burden on society and on whoever’s care he happened to be in that month.  He had been humiliated and robbed of his possessions too many times to count, getting slapped in the face by his “care givers” when he dared to complain… until he started taking his things back with his fists and a blade.  The repercussions had landed him in police custody for the first and last time.

After that he got wise.  The last two years of his life had changed him.  They had made him hard, they had taught him to fight and steal without getting caught, they had taught him to survive.  Every time he was beaten down, he picked himself back up.  Every new scar became a symbol of his strength.  Every tear shed became a part of the cold indifference he now wore on his face.  And every dirty fight he lost strengthened his hatred for him – the man responsible for his mother’s death and for his current predicament.  The man who would die by his hand so that his mother would be avenged and himself vindicated.

The man he finally had within his sights.

The picture that had popped up on his Facebook feed was blurry, but the look in the man’s eyes was unmistakable.  It was him.  The man he had been seeing in his nightmares as he slept with one eye open.  The man and the name, written in his mother’s hand on the back of the printed photograph.  The name of the man he was going to kill.

Dean Winchester.


	2. Chapter 2

“Sam!”  Delilah exclaimed as she stared up into the brightening dawn sky.  She scrambled to her feet, ignoring her nagging injuries as she pulled her phone out of her pocket.  She tapped Sam’s number from her contacts list and brought the phone to her ear as she stood on the curb, subconsciously looking down the road at where the Impala’s tail lights had disappeared around a bend.  The phone rang, and Delilah whispered, “Come on, come on, come on,” into the mouth piece desperately.   It suddenly occurred to her that Jody had not been able to reach him all the previous day, though she had called his phone multiple times… Sam had been looking for his missing brother… the brother who was now possessed by a demon.

“Fuck!” she yelled at the phone as Sam’s voice mail came on.

She ended the call without leaving a message and stood in the gathering light trying to steady her wildly racing thoughts, her heart doing its best to keep up with them.  What to do?  Sam was in trouble, she knew it, but what could she do? She didn’t even know where he was, or how to find him.  Where would she even begin to search for a Winchester?

Suddenly, she startled into a run, like a deer hearing a hunter’s rifle.  She rushed to the front door and scrambled to get her keys out of her pocket, fumbling them around blindly and finally jamming the right one into the lock when her panic induced clumsiness finally allowed her to.  She burst inside, the door bouncing off the wall, and she just caught Alex as she peeked around the corner from the bedroom hallway, looking wide-eyed and terrified.

“What’s going on?” she asked her, taking a few tentative steps towards Delilah.

“Sam’s in trouble,” Delilah managed to tell the teen as she rushed past her and into the office where she kept her things and slept.  She quickly scanned the room and the clothes she had dumped onto the floor when she had searched through her bag earlier, looking for weapons to defend herself against the Wendigo.  It was amazing how distant and insignificant that whole situation had become in light of what she had just learned.  She bent down to grab some of the clothes and shove it back into her bag when she caught sight of the state of her jeans.  One leg was shredded, bloody and cut up the side from both where the Wendigo had grabbed her with its sharply clawed fingers and where the medic had cut the fabric away to tend to the marks in her flesh.  Her shirt was not in a much better state, looking like she had been ravaged by a wild animal.

“Is that what Dean wanted to tell you?” asked Alex from the doorway as Delilah yanked the shirt over her head, ignoring the twinge in her shoulder and the soreness in her side and back.

Dean’s name slammed into her, making her flinch.  She saw again the cut on his hand and wrist knitting itself back together and then those black eyes watching her.  Delilah turned around and grabbed Alex by the shoulders, the dark-haired teen already taller than her own 5’4”, but looking like a child, her startled blue eyes wide and terrified.

“Listen to me, Alex.  You need to stay way away from him. Got it?”

“Um, yeah.  Why would I want to be around Dean, anyways?” she asked, a note of bravado, or teenage indifference trying to cover up the fear in her eyes.

“You don’t understand.  If he comes here again, don’t even give him the opportunity… just get somewhere safe, line the doors and windows with salt and…”  Delilah stopped suddenly, let go of Alex and crouched over her bag looking for something that would protect her loved ones from Dean…  from a demon, Delilah reminded herself with a shudder.  She pulled out a fresh t-shirt and a metal canister, straightening up again to face Alex.

“Salt?” the girl asked, sounding more confused than ever, “What the h…”  Delilah cut her off, handing her the non-descript, stainless steel flask.  Alex took it looking dumbfounded.  The liquid inside swished around, and Delilah wrapped her hands around Alex’s, forcing her to grip the cool metal tightly.

“If he somehow gets in, pour this on him.  It won’t stop him completely, but it might stall him enough for you to get away.”

She let go of Alex’s hands and pulled the dark blue t-shirt over her head, yanking it down to cover her blood streaked torso; emergency care having patched her up, but not having cleaned her skin beyond the immediate area around the wounds.

“I don’t understand,” Alex said looking from the flask to Delilah.  “Please, Delilah…  You’re scaring me.”

“We should all be scared…” Delilah said, her mind drifting off back to her confrontation with the demon, back to the pure horror of seeing those black demon eyes in Dean Winchester’s face.  The repercussions of his possession were just beyond the scope of imagination; Dean was already supercharged with the Mark of Cain, and now on top of that, some demon punk had taken up residence in his body.  And if she was right, and Crowley was behind all this well then… she was pretty sure it wasn’t some low-level demon in there.  “God save us all,” she whispered under her breath.

 _Sam!_ her brain yelled at her again.  She grabbed her back-up jeans from the floor and stripped out of the clawed ones before gingerly slipping the fresh ones up her legs, doing up the button as she yanked her army-grade nylon belt out of the destroyed pants' loops.  She quickly tied it around her hips then started shoving her scattered possessions into her bag indiscriminately, barely registering the girl rushing out of the room.  She flinched as the visions that the nighttime woods had conjured in her mind of Sam bloody, sightless and gone, paraded through her thoughts and seemed that much closer to reality.

She had to find him.  She had to help him.   God only knew what that thing out there had done to him.  She could only hope that she wasn’t too late.  How long had it been since she last heard from him?  _Is there anything I can say, to convince you to stay?_   No, she had told him flatly, six weeks ago.  Delilah couldn’t help the anguish coursing through her at what she had done.  How could she have been so selfish?  The guilt that had accompanied her in her nighttime trek through the woods overwhelmed her with imagined consequences – Sam maimed or dead – looking more and more likely in light of what she had just seen out on Jody’s front lawn.  The thoughts circled round and started their obsessive litany as she finished shoving her possessions into her bag.  She couldn’t help but scoff at her earlier worries about being a better friend to Sam.  If she had just stuck around and dealt with her issues, maybe Sam wouldn’t need saving now!  She tried to remind herself that there were a thousand possible reasons why Sam wasn’t answering his phone, and not all of them were because he needed help, but she couldn’t help it.  Sam not answering, or not calling back meant he was unable to: injured, captured, or dead and gone.

Fury replaced her guilt and fear and Delilah yanked the zipper closed around her bag and threw it over her shoulder.  She walked out of the office and down the hallway, dropping her gear by the door with a loud thump and clang.  Alex came rushing out of the kitchen and around the corner, clutching the black wireless phone in her hands.

Delilah barely spared her a glance, then turned around again and headed back to the office, remembering her sling bag.  She hadn’t touched it since she had dropped it on the floor that first day at Jody’s, but she yanked on the shoulder strap now and shoved it onto Sean Mill’s desk, sending a few knickknacks flying.  She opened the main pouch and shifted the things around inside: her tablet, her first aid kit, an opened bag of now stale gummy bears and finally, way at the bottom of her bag, under a spare set of clothes and some books from the bunker, the sharp edges catching the light from the hall – her angel blade.

She pulled it out, the feel and weight of it so familiar in her hand – the only thing of hers that could do anything to a demon.  She lowered the lethal weapon slowly, her eyes focused on it and yet unseeing as she tried to picture plunging the long blade into Dean in order to kill the possessing demon.  She felt nauseous suddenly, remembering a long ago dream in which she had done just that, his warm blood running down her hand, and she remembered the pain that had ripped through her at the thought of her being the cause of Dean’s death.

She nearly dropped the blade, her fingers going slack around the handle.  She had a moment, remembering Dean’s warm smile and gentle caressing, the feel of his lips brushing against hers, lights dancing in his green eyes as he held her in his arms, torturing her with his off-key singing.  _I don’t give a shit about you.  You’re nothing but an easy fuck, Delilah._   The memories came flooding back, pushing aside those warm moments, so few and far between, that her mind loved to cling to, but were all lies.  She saw again Dean’s fists flying at her face, the rage in his eyes and the cool calculating look as he forced himself onto her that night.  She remembered, too, the hurtful words and violence he had rained down upon her for months before she’d finally had enough.

She had walked away from him, she reminded herself, not because she was weak, but because she was strong.  She had just taken on a Wendigo, after all, and came out of it with barely a couple of scratches – her hand petted at the bandaged claw marks on her shoulder where the thing had swiped at her.  She was a hero, and she was going to have to go in and save Sam’s ass, and if that meant sinking a blade into his brother, well so be it.  Her fingers tightened around her blade handle again and she turned around, grabbing her sling bag’s strap, almost as an afterthought, and dragging it over her head and onto her good shoulder.  When she reached the front door, she bent down and grabbed her duffle bag too, before walking out of Jody’s house, Alex tearing out after her and calling her name with a sob.

“Delilah, please!  Don’t go!  None of this makes any sense!”

Delilah opened the Sheriff’s truck cab door and dropped her gear onto the front seat before turning around to face the terrified teen.  She felt instantly guilty seeing the tear tracks down her cheeks.  She noted Alex still had the phone clutched tightly in her hands too and she remembered feeling that kind of confused, frightened anguish herself.  Delilah walked back to her and wrapped her in her arms, holding her against her.

“It’s okay, Alex.  Everything’s gonna be fine.”

“How can you even say that?” Alex yelled, tearing out of Delilah’s embrace and looking angry and terrified and confused all at once.  “You just told me to fucking put salt everywhere to protect me from Dean Winchester like he’s a monster! An actual goddamned monster!  Don’t tell me everything’s fine!  Tell me what’s happening!”

“I don’t understand it either, Alex,” Delilah forced herself to look at the situation calmly, her brain analyzing her short encounter with the demon possessing Dean… she couldn’t help but feel that whoever had hijacked his body, certainly had done a good job hacking his brain, because she could have sworn she had been talking to Dean… granted a slightly bizarro, disturbing version of Dean, but him none-the-less.  She looked at the teen again and knew the girl needed to understand enough to keep her and Jody out of the kill zone.  “Look, I’ll know more when I find Sam, alright?  For now, though, I need you to stay away from Dean and do what I asked if you do see him.  And I need you to tell Jody too.  I won’t have him blindsiding either of you to get to me.”

“What does he want?” asked Alex, calmer, though she still clutched at the phone.

“I don’t know.  But you need to understand that it’s not Dean we’re dealing with, alright? No matter what he says or does, that thing is just using him for transportation.”

“Are you saying he’s possessed or something?  There’s something controlling him from the inside?”

“Yes.  A demon.  I don’t know who, and I don’t know how, but he’s possessed and that’s serious bad news for anyone.”

“So, you’re going to hunt down Dean Winchester?” the girl asked her, eyes wide and shocked.

“Yes,” Delilah answered with conviction, turning away from Alex and heading back to the Sheriff’s truck.  “And if I have to, I’ll kill him.”  She opened the truck’s door and put her foot on the runner.  She looked up at Alex one last time, trying to memorize all that she could of the girl, hoping that this would not be the last time she saw her.  “Take care of yourself, Alex.  And be safe.”

She sat down on the seat and slammed the door shut, cutting off Alex’s words as the teen took a few steps towards her, her hand stretched out, reaching for the hunter who already had her mind on the hunt ahead, forming a plan all on its own, the steps just falling into place following the only logical course.

~

Delilah pulled up the rental car to the barriers blocking off the road below the ancient, rundown power plant.  The late morning sun was hidden away behind a low ceiling of grey clouds that had been following her all the way down from Sioux Falls.  She closed the driver’s side door with a hollow sound that echoed off the tree trunks and back down the embankment to the river below.  She looked around at the familiar sight of the woods, enjoying the fresh green leaves on the branches and the ferns between the trunks.  She marveled again at the quiet beauty of the recluse spot where the Men of Letters had chosen to build their fortress of magical secrets.

She opened the trunk of the silver Elantra using the button on the remote so she could pull out her bags.  Her angel blade she had kept with her on the passenger seat and she now tucked it into her nylon belt as she got ready to walk back into a place she had told herself she would never see again.

She slammed the trunk shut, causing a nearby squirrel to scatter off into the underbrush, alarmed by the sudden movement.  One of the things she had found nestled at the bottom of her sling bag was her ID case, camouflaged as an old leather-bound book, that Sam had given her on her birthday.  It still contained her remaining fake identification cards for the various law enforcement agencies and potentially useful but generic employment that could get her in at a crime scene or into a person’s home if need be, minus of course her cherished FBI badge that had disappeared with the snap of Crowley’s fingers a long-ago night in Cleveland.  Opening the box earlier in Sioux Falls though had revealed her fake credit cards – cards that Sam had conveniently ordered for her under fake names when her living at the bunker had started to look like a more permanent arrangement.  The cards and IDs had remained dormant and unused while she lived at Jody’s, since the Sheriff had insisted on only legitimate methods of payment.  The need to dust them off though had been evident when faced with the urgency to get to Lebanon faster than by an indirect bus route.

She had used the fake driver’s licence paired with one of the fraudulent credit cards when she pulled into the car rental agency beside the bus depot and traded in the keys from Jody’s truck with the keys to an Elantra from the previous year, the clunky remote awkward as it dangled from the keyring.  She told the confused clerk behind the counter that Sheriff Mills would be coming to get her truck later and to please keep it until then.  By the time Delilah’s phone rang - an outraged, concerned Jody on the other end - she was already well into the vast Nebraska plains.

“I’m not going to apologize, Jody,” she said into the phone as she tapped the call button.

“Goddamnit, Delilah!  Would you please explain to me what is going on in that noggin’ of yours?  You stole a second car in twenty-four hours!”

“I did not steal it.  Your truck is waiting for you in the parking lot of the rental place.”

“I’m not talking about my truck!  Poor clerk already called that one in.  I’m talking about the car you stole from them!”

“My cards checked out, Sheriff!”

“Bullshit!” Jody exclaimed loudly on the other end of the line before lowering her voice again, making Delilah think that she might be at work still, “You and I both know that credit card is not real.  And I had a hell of a time explaining to the rental clerk that you had a legitimate reason for driving around in the sheriff’s truck!”

“Listen, Jody.  I needed wheels.  I have to find Sam.”

“I get it, Delilah, but you can’t break the law left right and centre and not expect some serious repercussions.”

“What about the repercussions from sitting on my ass doing nothing while Sam is clearly in trouble?” she raised her voice into the phone, hitting the steering wheel angrily.

“You don’t know that, hun,” Jody said, sounding worried herself, “There are plenty of reasons why he wouldn’t be returning our calls.”

“And at least one of those reasons has black eyes and is walking around in a fresh Dean Winchester suit!”

Jody breathed in sharply and huffed out the breath, “Alex told me what you told her.  You scared the living daylights out of her!”

“We should all be scared.  She needed to know so she wouldn’t become an unwitting victim… again!”

Jody didn’t answer.  Delilah could hear her taking deep breaths beyond the static of the poor cell phone connection.  “Do you realize how crazy this all sounds?” she asked, after a moment. “Dean Winchester?  Possessed by a demon?”

“I know,” Delilah answered dejectedly, “but I saw it with my own two eyes.  Dean is possessed, and Sam is not answering his phone.  You’d have to handcuff me to a cement wall to stop me from going out after him.”

“Do you even know where to look?  This is a Winchester we’re talking about.  If he doesn’t want to be found, you won’t find him.”

“That’s why I’m starting with Kansas.  If Sam left any bread crumbs behind, they’d be there.  As soon as I can, I’ll grab one of the cars at the bunker and I’ll drop this one off again at a local satellite office.  There are more important things at stake here than a missing Rent-a-Car.”

Jody was silent for a long while, Delilah almost thinking the line had gone dead, except she could still hear the staticky sounds in her ear.

“This is just too important, Jody,” Delilah added, with a last plea.

“Just…” Jody hesitated on the other end, giving way to more staticky silence.  “Just be careful, sweetheart.  You know what Dean is capable of, even without a demon possessing him.”

“I know Jody.  Believe me, I probably know more than anybody what Dean Winchester is capable of.  But this is not about him.  This is about helping Sam.  If he’s in trouble, he needs the cavalry to come charging in.”

“And tell me again why that has to be you?”

Delilah frowned, the idea had never even brushed her thoughts that anyone other than her could swoop in.  In her mind, it had to be her.  Why would some other hunter go out of his way to help Sam?  She cared about him, had lived with him for months.  She knew his habits and his routines.  Hell!  She had been trained by his own brother who had been trained by their father…  If anyone could track him down, it was her.

Now, a few hours later, Delilah made her way down the metal grill steps that led from the street to the door built into the large drainage tunnel.  Shakily, she lay her hand on the cold iron trying to steady her suddenly rapid breaths.  It was like she was back in the woods in Sioux Falls, hunting the Wendigo and unsure which direction the threat would be coming from, only here, the dangers were all in her mind as her memories of the place beyond the warded barrier made her anxiety spike.  What would she find in those catacombs where she had buried what Dean had done to her?  Would there be more that she had repressed, waiting for the right trigger to resurface? Or would everything she already remembered become more intense and more vivid back in the place where they had happened?  Delilah shook herself.  Regardless what was waiting for her, she had to push on.  She had to find Sam.

It suddenly occurred to her that the door may not open, the bunker would certainly be in lockdown if no one was home, but she laid her hand on the round doorknob anyhow and was only mildly shocked that the ancient, rust-seized knob turned in her hand smoothly. The door swung freely open with a squeal of tired hinges and she stepped onto the spiral stairs encased in solid cement that led down to the Men of Letters’ bunker.  Each of her booted steps onto the metal grill of the curved staircase down towards the inner door echoed and struck her ears like a thunderclap, or a cymbal hit, and she did her best not to flinch.  Each piercing peel brought her worries closer to the surface: Why would Sam, or Dean for that matter, leave the front door to the bunker unlocked and accessible to all?  Could someone be home?  Would she find Sam, slouched over a book or his computer like everything was normal?  Would she find Dean standing over his brother’s lifeless body, with black eyes and a bloody knife?

When she finally reached the bottom step, she stood on the concrete floor and stared at the thick wooden door with the iron inlays and found that this door was going to be much harder to open than the first one.  She lay her hand on the knob, unable to turn it, not wanting to see what horrors lay in wait beyond the door.  As the metal bands around her chest constricted, she found herself wavering in her certainty, hearing once more as Jody asked her over the phone why she had to be the one to find Sam.  Maybe the sheriff was right.  Maybe, she thought, taking a careful step back, she could just head back out and call someone else to take care of the Winchesters, someone better than a scared little girl who couldn’t even open a door.

The thought angered her, waking the sleeping beast inside her that wanted to prove the world wrong about her, that wanted to prove to herself that she was not a beaten, terrified little girl like she once was, and like she had nearly become again.  She pulled her angel blade from her belt, and with quick breaths she moved up to the door again, lay her hand on the knob and turned it.  Just like the outer door had swung open with barely a touch, so did this one, and she stepped over the threshold before she could change her mind again.  A breeze kicked up by the pressure differential caressed her face suddenly and played with her hair and she couldn’t help but take a deep breath: old paper and leather, iron, wood and the faint electric smell of hot light bulbs… home, she thought in relief.  The heavy bands crushing her ribs loosened and she breathed it all in again.

Delilah took a step inside, dropping her bags to the concrete floor, and drew up to the iron that wrapped around the edge of the balcony.  She wrapped her hand around it, trying to anchor herself, grounding her, so she wouldn’t be overwhelmed by everything just rushing through her mind as her senses swept away cobwebs and dust motes, revealing things she had hidden away from herself for her own sanity’s sake.  The light behind the bottle blue glass wall cast its familiar underwater glow to the dim lighting as she swept her gaze around the room.  Almost like the bunker had sensed her presence, the lights below her brightened, banishing the shadows to the corners and the surrounding hallways, where the lights were still dormant.  A worried frown spread on her face, as she scanned for signs of life.  She strained her ears, but other than the quiet buzzing of electricity running through the walls and ceilings, there were no sounds: the place felt completely deserted.  She certainly had spent enough time on her own there to know.

Her gaze swept the room below again and her eyes were drawn to the right, to her previous refuge, her spot: the red leather chairs set out as always on either side of the small table with the lamp and chess board, waiting an eternity for someone to sit and play with the carefully carved pieces.  _You’re so beautiful_ , Dean had told her as she had sat there a long-ago evening.  His arms wrapped around her once more and she closed her eyes relishing the feel of the memory brought to life by being in the place where it had happened.  She wanted nothing more than to curl up in her chair and let that past moment become her present, making it the single most important thing for her to do at this exact point in time.  Nothing else mattered but living in those seconds, minutes, hours, wrapped in Dean Winchester’s lovemaking.

 _From now on, you’re staying at the bunker._   The memory of his hard, uncaring stare as they drove to Kansas after her encounter with Crowley and Abaddon pushed through, and the warmth seeped out of her once more, leaving her feeling cold, and tired and drained.  What the hell did she think she was going to accomplish by coming back here?

 _You’re not coming?_ Another voice butted in.  The smoother, gentler tone of Sam’s concern wrapped around her and then it was his arms that held her, standing by her favourite chair, as he comforted her, knowing exactly what she needed to hear to make all the hurt go away.  _We’ve all had our bad runs, okay?  But don’t for a second think that you are not a damn good hunter.  ‘Cause you are._

Delilah could feel the strength he had sent pumping through her veins with his genuine words of encouragement that day, and suddenly everything was clear, and all distractions fell away and she was filled once more with the certainty and determination that she would find and save him – only his cold dead body laid out in front of her would convince her that saving him was impossible.

_“Should we just chalk this one up in the loss column, maybe?” she asked Sam as she sat back staring hopelessly at the complete lack of leads before them._

_“You’re giving up already?  We’ve only just started.”_

_“Sam.  We’ve been at this for days.  There’s nothing left to look into!  Ethan is just gone.  No doubt monster chow by now.”_

_“No,” he answered, his voice so filled with conviction it made Delilah look up at him startled.  “We don’t stop.  Not until we find him.  Alive or dead, we will find out what happened to him.”_

_“But, if we’re too late to save him…  what then?”_

_“Then we get the evil son of a bitch that did it so no one else will get hurt.  But we do not give up.  Always keep fighting, Delilah.”_

_“But…  why?”_

_“Because, someone has to.”_

His words echoed in her brain again, _always keep fighting_.  That’s exactly what she would do.  She would never stop fighting for the Winchesters, because with everything they did, and continue to do for the unsuspecting normal happy people of the world, they deserved to have someone fight for them too.  The uneasy idea that maybe she would have to kill one of them in order to keep the other safe flickered at her subconscious, but she batted it aside – she would burn that bridge when she got there, in the meantime, she had a hunter to save.

Feeling energized and strong, propelled by her singular purpose, she pulled herself up by the railing, standing tall from where she had crouched down into a protective huddle, and she made her way down the stairs and into the war room proper.  She glanced around quickly as she slipped her angel blade back into her belt.  The room looked much the same as it always had: the world table glowing warmly, the chairs all neatly tucked under it, ready for a strategic meeting, the various telecommunication gear all laid out along the wall the room shared with the currently darkened library.  The lights in other parts of the bunker had not yet turned on, though she could see the faintly growing glow of light coming from the hallway that led to the kitchen.  And to her own room.

It almost seemed like the bunker wanted her to go that way, to go revisit the place where she had felt most at home and as she looked towards the darkened library, she wondered why those lights seemed to refuse to turn on.  She glanced down towards the kitchen hallway again and took a step towards it before stopping. She doubted she would find any clues to Sam’s whereabouts by dusting off her bedroom and she glanced towards the obstinately dark library again.  She took a step towards it, feeling the fine hairs on her body tingle as they stood at attention.  Delilah shook her head.

“I don’t know what games you’re playing,” she said out loud, her voice disappearing into the quietness of the bunker, a strange quality considering the hard floors and walls of the place; her voice should have bounced and echoed, but it did not, it never had in that place.  She took another step towards the library, feeling her resolve grow even as her confidence grew.  She addressed the empty bunker as though it was a person, “You and I both know that whatever you’re hiding in there,” she nodded her chin towards the archway, putting her foot down on the first of the wooden steps, “Whatever it is…  I need to see it.”

She stood in the framed entryway that separated the war room from the library and looked into the pitch black space like she was looking into a great void.  She felt eyes upon her as her anxiety rose, like a thousand tiny pupils were staring at her, analyzing her from the room beyond the lack of light.  She had to swallow down a lump as the walls expanded and let out a breath that she almost felt on the back of her neck, her flesh breaking out in goosebumps again.  She felt it nearly overwhelming her, that dark space, hiding what she shouldn’t see…

The absurdity of it all.  Why would the bunker not want her to help Sam?  She shook herself again and frowned: you’re letting your imagination get the better of you.  The bunker isn’t sentient, come on Dee, get your ass in there and stop stalling.

She jerked herself forward blindly into the room, her legs connecting with the table edge after a few steps as the lights finally flickered to life reluctantly and grew in intensity.  She caught herself against the table top as the warm golden yellow light bathed the dark wood and brick of the room, banishing the previous darkness and making her heart lurch into her stomach sickeningly.

The room was in chaos: chairs askew, books and papers stacked on top of the shelves, or on the floor, banker’s boxes open with their lids carelessly shunted to the side, papers just everywhere like autumn had come to the library.  At the heart of the mess, overflowing with things was the centre table, the one that had been made a part of her defiling that night.  She moved towards it reluctantly but filled with determination – her eyes wide and her heart beating quickly like she was a rabbit caught in headlights.  The wood was barely visible from under a riot of furious research and spell work.  Books upon books were open and stacked, pens without their caps here and there had been discarded or set aside, forgotten in a rush of inspiration maybe, folders and scattered papers were bent and ruffled under more books and handwritten notes.   More notes were crumpled into balls and thrown aside.  Even the lamp that usually sat dead centre on the wood panel had been pushed aside to make room for the police scanner which was sitting dormant under a file folder stamped with the Men of Letters’ logo and labelled “Summoning and Exorcism” and under that a name.  There were a few of these folios lying around, some with their papers scattered to the four winds.  Delilah shuddered thinking of the work it would take to put them all back in order again.

Then, she caught a glimpse out of the corner of her eye as she was turning her head.  She turned towards the shelved wall behind her and her eyes fixed on something at the base of it, on the hardwood floor.  Her brain refused to put image and thought together as she moved closer and finally bent down to pick up the carcass of the phone on the ground.  A heaviness blanketed her thoughts as she felt Sam’s despair and anger as he searched fruitlessly for his brother.  She could almost feel his frustrated energy from where he had sat at the table with no news of his brother, the madness rising in him until he had thrown the closest thing he had on hand, maybe hoping to vent off some of what was eating at him, and then hanging his head in his hands, his fingers clutching at his long hair as the phone shattered.  “I’m so sorry, Sam,” she said woefully at the ruined mess of electronics.  No wonder he hadn’t been answering her and Jody.

Delilah turned back towards the table, laying the useless lump of plastic and electronics on top of one of the teetering piles of materials and a sharp, acrid smell tickled her nose.  She glanced into the large bowl resting on top of a book, sitting precariously close to the edge of the table.  Whatever had been in there before was now a clotted mess of ingredients that had started to turn unpleasantly.  She pushed the bowl away from the edge of the table, catching the pestle too before it rolled over the edge and onto the floor.  She put it down next to the open grimoire she suspected the spell had come from, and wiped the greasy, powdery residue left on her hand on her jeans.  She found her guilt and discomfort retreating to the back of her mind where it would not stop her from thinking as her attention was drawn to some of the books left out on the table among the papers: _Demonic Possession,_ and _Rituals of Human Possession_ , prominent among them.  Did Sam know then, that his brother was possessed?  Delilah huffed through her nose, annoyed at the lack of answers.  She moved up to the other end of the table where the chair was carelessly pushed back and slightly turned away.  This was clearly where Sam had set up: there were dirty cups of half drunk coffee, cold now in their abandonment, shoved to the side in thoughtless unconcern, a page of notes actually dipping its corner into the liquid and slowly turning a splotchy brown.

She picked up the soggy mess and glanced at the words written on the page in a scrawl that resembled Sam’s but lacked his usual neatness.  The notes were as chaotic as the rest of the room, words not seeming to connect to anything in particular, and not referenced to the materials they came from.  Lines of inquiry mixed in with unrelated answers.  She looked down at the grain of the table, an empty spot that stood out from the clutter conspicuously.  It was untouched by books or notes: a near perfect rectangle that was clear down to the wood surface.  Delilah frowned at it, wondering what could have been there and been important enough to remove when everything else was left in disarray.  Then it hit her.  It was his laptop.  It had been part of the hectic research into all things demon and now it was missing.  No.  Not missing, Delilah realized with a shake of her head, he had taken it with him.  Wherever Sam had disappeared to with his demon research and knowledge, that’s where the laptop had gone too.

Where was that, though?  Delilah scanned the table again with a discouraged shake of her head.  How could she retrace his steps?  How could she even begin to make sense of his research?  He could have decided to go anywhere.  There was no guarantee either that what had called him away was even related to the books and files left lying around.  Something could easily have popped up through his tracking software.  If she had his computer she could look at his search history, but without it…

Her eyes focused on something else that seemed out of place in the jumbled mess – a blank note pad.  With the scribbled notes everywhere, the presence of a blank sheet was odd to say the least.  She wondered about it when an idea, sprouted from too many spy movies, swam up and poked at her.  She reached behind her for the chair that had been pushed back and away from the table and pulled it back in, so she could sit down.  She pulled the yellow pad of lined paper towards her and tilted it under the light to see if she could make out anything.  The light was catching fine edges etched into the paper, a note quickly and carelessly scribbled on the pad and the top sheet removed, torn off, leaving behind a corner still attached to the binding.  She tilted the pad again, trying to make out what those indentations were trying to tell her, but she could not quite make out the words.  She put the pad down and pushed papers and books aside quickly, looking for a pencil.  What she found instead stopped her dead.

The piece of white, lined paper should have been inconspicuous, lost in the rest of the mess on the table, but it practically jumped out at Delilah who was regarding it with a weary attention, like it was a snarling dog ready to bite.  The paper was mostly blank, except for a few words written in Dean’s neat block letters, so different from Sam’s chicken scratches.  She swallowed hard and reached for it.  She brought the black felt penned message closer, so she could read it: Sammy let me go

Dean.  Dean had written this.  To his brother.  She could all too well imagine the pain Sam must have felt reading that note.  “What have you done?” Delilah asked the empty bunker, her voice sounding loud in the silence surrounding her, her anger swelling up inside of her like a balloon filling too quickly. _Why don’t you just get the fuck out of here?_

She put the note down before she burst, and that’s when she spotted the round pink eraser sticking out from between the pages of a book, bending the delicate spine out of shape.  She pulled it out quickly, Dean’s words to her fading once again from her consciousness as she concentrated once more on her self-imposed mission.  She brought the grey graphite to the yellow paper, hatching lines across it quickly, darkening the page.  Like magic, words started appearing on the paper revealing a name she did not recognize.  She looked at it thoughtfully, sitting back against the chair’s back rest as the wheels in her brain turned and churned.  She pulled out her phone and opened a browser window, amazed as she always was that any sort of signal made it through the bunker’s thick walls.  She searched for the name on the paper and what she found had her springing out of the chair again like it was electrified, and someone had suddenly thrown the switch.  She tore the paper off the pad and folded it, slipping it into her pocket as she pushed back from the table and rushed back out to the war room and bounded up the stairs in twos.  She barely bent down to grab her discarded bags from earlier and pulled open the door, disappearing back up the spiral stairs and out of the bunker before it had time to close again with a squeal and a groan.  She jumped into the rented car, ignoring her promise to Jody to return it to the rental agency’s satellite office.  She needed wheels to get to Findlay, Wisconsin, where Drew Neely had been found dead a couple days ago.  Murdered in a convenience store.

Though she did not know much more than what the headlines had told her, she knew that this had been important enough for Sam to rush away, and so that was where she would start looking for him.  She only hoped she could pick up his trail from there.


	3. Chapter 3

“Look fucktard, just get the hell out of here a’aight?  My boss catches me talking to some punk, street kid my job’s toast.”

Mickey – his eyes registered the nametag.  Suddenly, there was nothing in his mind more important, more fundamentally necessary, than reaching across the counter and bashing the arrogant cock sucking fuck’s face into the glass top.  He could see it in his mind, the glass shattering and cutting Mickey’s arrogant pimple-riddled face, his blood gushing, thick and warm over the displayed scratch ticket lotteries below.  He could see the shard piercing the gelatinous glob that was his eye and leaking clear fluid as the insignificant clerk screamed in pain.

“Listen up, cocksucker,” he said, glaring at the cashier, feeling his lips pulling into a snarl, his eyes burning from not enough sleep and too much cheap, gas-station, battery acid coffee.  He slammed the picture onto the counter, closing his fist over it to keep it in place, in case the fucking dimwitted ass tried to pick it up, to take it away from him.  “You seen this guy, right here?”

Mickey barely glanced at the picture before his mouth twisted into a half grin of arrogant disbelief.  “What wrong…  Did you lose your daddy?”  His stare darkened again, that feral animal in his chest itching to crawl out and eviscerate Mickey the Clerk.  Clearly oblivious to his rising anger and the danger he was in, Mickey continued, his voice becoming childish as he stuck his lower lip out in a mocking pout.  “Did you’w swut mom wun off wit deh miwkman and weave you all awone?”  He closed his eyes tight and rubbed his fists at them in an exaggerated imitation of a baby, and the fury rose again, swelling his insides dangerously fast like a hot balloon in cold air.

Practically shaking with barely contained rage, he reached for the knife he always kept on his belt: his safety, his security in the topsy turvy place the world had become in the past three years.  Mickey grabbed the picture from the counter as soon as his hand had cleared away from it, making his throat constrict in fearful rage, unable to stop him from taking it.  With a laugh like a donkey’s ass, Mickey sent the photograph flying to the side, making him forget that he had been reaching for his weapon, that he had been intending to slam the point down into Mickey’s hand, that he had been ready to threaten the clerk with a gruesome, painful beating, all thoughts abandoned as he scrambled to recover the picture of his mother and her murderer.

He picked it up off the floor, his eyes not failing to notice the line of greasy floor grit where the mopping just wasn’t reaching.  He straightened up and his eyes naturally, and mostly without his control, sought out more signs of neglect: the layers of old grease coating the hotdog rollers as they broiled in the filth of past sausage, the slush machines dripping with forgotten sticky sugar, forming slow stalactites just waiting to fall in someone’s drink and contaminate it.  “And the fucker thinks talking to me will get him fired?  Shitface needs to clean sometimes,” he mumbled to himself as he stood up again.

“Agent Killmister, FBI,” said a new voice coming from the counter to his right.

 _Motherfuck!_ He ducked back down behind the chip rack like a gun had been shot at him.  His palms became sweaty as his mind raced to the conclusion that the law was on his heels.  How did they find him so fast?

“What can you tell me about the stabbing two days ago?” the new voice went on calmly, oozing authority.

Crouched behind his blind, his lungs resumed their normal function as he realized that the copper was not here for him, but in fact was looking into the same thing he was.  He turned around and tilted his head beyond the colourful plastic wrappers, so he could get a look at this “Agent Killmister”.  From his angle near the ground, the man looked like a giant, towering over Mickey from this side of the counter.  He was wearing a charcoal suit, his long brown hair just barely brushing the collar of his shirt.  He noticed the man’s arm was in a sling – something fancy designed to immobilize the arm completely.  The man was most definitely FBI, or CIA, or some shit like that.

Unlike him just before, the agent had no problems getting Mickey to talk about the bloody incident.  The clerk was recounting it with overly dramatic flare, painting a picture of the animal that had stabbed a Gas n’ Sip customer a few days back.  He strained his ear, though it really wasn’t necessary, Mickey wasn’t even trying to keep his voice down.

“Oh yeah!” Mickey said, “Porn guy was an animal.  Bro came at him like – What!” The clerk swung at an imaginary opponent as he continued to half describe, half mime what had happened in the store.  The picture Mickey painted of ‘Porn Guy’, who he figured had to be the man in his picture, sole survivor and all, was gruesome.  Although the clerk was most definitely exaggerating, it was pretty clear that either Porn Guy was a sociopath, or he was used to fighting for his life.  It sounded like he hadn’t stopped until the man was beyond dead.  The clerk’s eyes went blank as he looked beyond the FBI agent’s broad shoulders and he ducked back quickly to avoid Mickey seeing him and ragging on him again.  He figured it was time to make his exit anyways.  He slowly stood up, as though all along he had been looking for a particular brand of chips and ended up disappointed.  It certainly would not fool Mickey, but if he could pass under the cop’s radar, he would consider that a win.  He tucked the picture of his mother back into his inside jacket pocket, snug against his wallet, and then made his way around the other end of the rack and towards the door.

As he neared it, the irrepressible urge to look around struck him.  It was what he imagined a Spidey-sense felt like: gooseflesh, shiver, time slowing and invisible strings moving him beyond his control.  He put one hand on the door in a slight daze as he looked around at the tall agent facing Mickey in the same way he himself had done just before.  There was nothing particularly remarkable about the man, except maybe his height, and yet…  He couldn’t help but feel like he’d seen him before.

A twitch in the man’s neck warned him that he was about to turn his head and spot him, so he calmly turned away, pushed the door open and stepped out of the convenience store and into the bright, sunny afternoon, his mind a mess of questions and frustrations, laced with his constant anger at something, everything.  Ever since his mother’s death and his belly flop into the social services system of Michigan, bouncing from foster home to foster home as they unsuccessfully tried to track down his aunt and finally landing in Detroit where they supposedly had better resources to deal with “his issues,” that boiling anger had been with him, eating away at everything else until he felt like all he was was anger and resentment.  It kept him focused, and in the youth centres he had been sent to, that focus kept him alive, and so his anger grew.  Anger at his situation, became anger at the half-assed caregivers who were only in it for the government cheques.  It became anger at his mother for getting herself killed and leaving him in this fucking mess.  And with the discovery of the picture, that anger swelled to rage against the man beside his mother in the picture: Dean Winchester.  Though he couldn’t remember ever having met the man, he was convinced, the way he had been convinced that the agent inside that store was someone that he knew, or had known long ago, that the man in the picture held all the answers and was in fact responsible for his mother’s death.

He moved off towards the other side of the gas pumps, wondering in frustration what he could do next.  How was he supposed to go about looking for a man who didn’t exist?  Because of course, the first thing he did when he found the picture with the name in the back was to look into who he was.  But all his Google searches revealed were old FBI’s Most Wanted rap sheets and a date of death some three years before.  The warrant out on Dean Winchester had been dropped and no other trace of him existed.  He would have dismissed the whole thing, except the picture that accompanied the old FBI file on their site was clearly the same man in the picture with his mother.  He remembered that house too, he and his mom had lived there for a few years when he was younger.  He distinctly remembered moving there not long after his eighth birthday.  He could remember riding his bike around the block, and having birthday parties in the yard with his childhood friends.  He remembered the tree in the back that he had tried to climb and fell out of, a rock digging into his knee and leaving a scar that was still visible to this day.  He could remember his room, with the glow-in-the-dark stars stuck to the ceiling… but he could not remember this man being there.  His mind drifted back to the other picture he had seen two nights ago pop up on his Facebook feed.  A local alert about a man they were looking for related to a stabbing in a convenience store.  It was him.  It was that same man.  Confusion had swirled in his mind, how could he be both alive and dead?  He had wanted more answers, and so here he was.  No further ahead.  No answers.

He had made his way to the other side of the lot, still unsure what he should be doing next.  He turned his head as the flash of the door opening and catching the sunlight shone in his eyes and he winced against the sudden glare.  The door closed again, showing him that the agent had walked out.  He leaned back against a lamp post, watching him and wondering what his next move should be.  His gut and his head were at war with each other.  The one was pushing him to go talk to the man, ask him questions about the man in his picture and find out what he knew, maybe confirm that they were looking for the same person at least.  The other was telling him to duck and hide or else he would find himself in police custody again… and that was an experience he really did not care to relive. “Fuck!  Get your head out of your fucking ass!” he whispered angrily to himself, “He’s not gonna give a shit about a runaway kid.”  And the agent was the best lead he had to find this guy.  The only lead in fact.

He looked up towards where the agent had wandered, approaching a non-descript black car, some generic rental agency’s logo on the trunk.  _The FBI rents cheap cars?  You’d think they had company cars at least._   The agent had two phones in his hands and as he reached the car, he put one of them down on the roof and brought the other one closer to his mouth, so he could talk into it like a recorder.

With a curious frown firmly in place, he moved in closer, trying to hear what was being said.  His ratty, old sneakers made no noise as he approached the tall agent, instinctively measuring him up in case he had to fight or fly.  The man’s shoulders were broad, and his suit jacket was stretched tight across them, but no gut spilled over the man’s belt buckle as he started to move away slowly, talking into the phone – fit.  He could see more clearly now the black sling that was holding his right arm immobile and useless – he wondered if the man was a righty.  Regardless of the man’s height advantage, he decided that if he could catch him off guard, he could probably hurt him enough to be able to get away…  if he had to.

He had almost reached him, his skin crawling with that sense again, that idea that somehow he knew who this man was poking at his mind.  When he poked back, though, prodding at it, nothing came up from his memories, nothing but the sense of something forgotten… nagging and pulling at him like stitches.  The agent suddenly turned towards where he was concealed and the first of the conversation reached his ears making him duck and freeze behind the nearby gas pump.  The agent’s words gummed up his brain completely and it ceased to function, becoming a jumble of thoughts and emotion.

“How does Dean feel about that double cross?”

His brain had homed in and got stuck on the one word.  It validated his gut feeling about the man who had stabbed and killed someone in the Gas n’ Sip behind him.  It brought together beyond the shadow of a doubt that the man Mickey the clerk had dubbed “porn guy” and the man in his picture were one and the same.  Excitement at being right flooded his system momentarily, speeding up his heart and breathing and sending a jolt of energy through him, _he had been right!_   The excitement was quickly turning to rage though as the anger that was always lurking in the pit of his stomach started rearing its ugly head and coated his thoughts with a blinding layer of red.  The man who had stabbed the guy was a murderer, Dean Winchester was a murderer.  And that thought drove the conviction further into his core that he had also murdered his mother.  And then, the agent said something that pierced the rage fog and nearly turned him wild.  “I will save my brother or die trying,” he said.

 _His brother? His fucking BROTHER?!_   Then it hit him, the man looked familiar because he had seen his picture as well, side-by-side with Dean Winchester’s photo on the FBI’s Most Wanted from a few years ago.  It took all he had in him not to attack the man where he stood.  He was shaking with the effort to contain his emotions, his fists closed so tightly his nails were digging into his palms, his knuckles making popping noises.  It struck him suddenly, hearing the low, scratchy voice answering the agent from the phone, that the call was on speaker.  The thought hit him like a brick: whoever was on the other end of that call also knew Dean Winchester.  Maybe while he had been standing there stewing stupidly in his own rage and self-pity, valuable information on his prey’s whereabouts was being exchanged, and lost.  He forced himself to calm down enough to tune in more closely to the conversation.

 “He’s not your pet,” said the murderer’s brother from just the other side of the gas pump he was pressed against, hidden.  One step more and he’d be seen.  He stayed put, though, determined to not miss another word as the deep, scratchy accented, man’s voice spoke; the mystery person who also knew Dean.

“My pet?” he was saying, sounding surprised and a little outraged, “He’s my best friend, my partner in crime.  They’ll write songs about us, graphic novels!  “ _The Misadventures of Growley and Squirrel._ ” Dean Winchester completes me, and that’s what makes you lose your chickens.”

He had to stop himself from reacting, once again, to the name.  If he acted now, he would miss out and clearly the self-proclaimed best friend of the man who had murdered his mother knew more about Dean’s current whereabouts than either him or the brother.

“I’m going to find you,” answered the man, his voice shaking slightly and yet sounding firm and determined, “I’m going to save my brother, and then I’m going to kill you dead.”

“Well, that’s the operative phrase, isn’t it?  “ _Find you._ ”  Good luck with that.”

The following silence drew his attention as he looked around the gas pump at the tall man, trying to decide what he would do next.  He had to talk to him.  He had to try to get information at least, maybe if he showed him the picture without telling him why he was looking for Dean, maybe he’d agree to let him tag along…

Feeling his chest tighten and his body springs coiling, bracing himself for whatever would happen, he straightened up and took a few steps towards the man.  He was standing by the back of the car, the man having picked up the phone he had left sitting on the roof.  With the push of a button on his keys, the man popped the trunk open, startling him, making him stop a few steps behind and to the left of him.  He opened his mouth to speak just as the man turned his head towards him.

He thought he was ready for anything, any reaction out of the vaguely familiar stranger: anger, confusion, curiosity, annoyance, indifference.  He was struck again by that sense of recognition that couldn’t quite be explained by having seen his photo once.  He frowned in that half second since the man turned, and he just registered the look of shock on his face as his eyes locked with his.  “Ben?” the man said, starting to turn his shoulders towards him.   _WHAT THE FUCK?_ his brain screamed at him, and he reacted, the springs in his body releasing all at once and he felt, in a daze, his right elbow connecting with the man’s jaw as he swung it high as fast as a sling shot.

The man who had just said his name with confused certainty rocked against the car and Ben hit him again, punching him dead centre on his nose.  The blood started gushing out the man’s flared nostrils as he tried to raise his slinged arm in a reflex gesture.  The man groaned, and Ben thought that now would be a good time to run away, except…  No coherent thought or plan formed in Ben’s mind, nothing concrete, no clear steps, however something in him dictated his actions, and he elbowed the confused man again, this time in the back of the neck right at the base of the skull and the impact made him go limp against the car. Ben caught him before he hit the ground and, looking around quickly to make sure no one had seen the attack, he opened the passenger door and shoved the huge man awkwardly into the seat.  He lifted his heavy limbs into the car too before slamming the door shut.  His mind was a litany of _Oh my God!_ and _What the hell?_   while something more basic, more instinctive and reptilian caught the shine reflecting off the dropped metal on the ground.  He bent down and picked up the keys and the two phones.  One of them was intact, but the other’s screen was shattered in the top corner.  With little to no control, he stuffed them both in his pockets and made for the trunk the man who had said his name had popped open before.  He ducked inside, aware that any second, the man he had unceremoniously stuffed into his rental car could stir and wake and he had to find something to keep him under his power.  At least until he could get more answers out of him.

In the trunk, beside a black duffel case and a leather shoulder laptop bag, he found a black cotton bag, supplied by the rental agency, no doubt, to hold certain emergency car supplies.  He dumped the contents of the bag, grabbed a couple bungee cords and was about to slam the trunk shut again when instinct made him grab for the bag too.  He rushed to the driver’s side of the car, glancing around nervously, becoming more and more aware of the people milling around the gas station and the bright sunshine beaming down on the place.  His eyes landed on a black dome sitting in the corner of the little roof over the gas pumps and he hurriedly turned his head away again, realizing the whole thing had been caught on the security cameras.  _Fuck fuck fuck!_ his brain chanted as he pulled open the door and dropped into the seat.  He looked over the man quickly, seeing he was still passed out, his body slouched towards him, his long hair hanging tousled and limp, and anger overcame the confusion again.  Ben pulled the black cotton bag down over the man’s head and straightened him up again, reaching across his body to pull his hands close and binding his wrists together tightly with the bungee cord.  Ben knew he was acting on pure instinct with little understanding, but he didn’t pause to wonder where those instincts came from, simply chalking it all up subconsciously to his time in the homes getting his ass kicked and beaten… even as an itch of an idea surfaced before getting drowned out again by the litany of swearing: someone had shown him how to tie that knot.

Finally, Ben Braeden turned to the steering wheel, fumbled a little with the key before finally jamming it into the ignition and turning it, the car’s engine rumbling quietly to life.  He looked down at the shifter and with all the certainty his arcade trained 15 years would allow him, pushed down on the clutch, shifted the car into gear and drove off.


	4. Chapter 4

Delilah pulled her box of IDs into her lap and rummaged through them in frustration as she sat in her car, parked outside the Portage County Sheriff’s Department.  She was shaky and amped from her ten-hour drive.  She couldn’t count the number of quick, rushed pit stops she’d done for coffee.  She had tapped her foot impatiently as she gassed up the car somewhere in the middle of Iowa, surrounded as far as the eye could see in late spring fields.  And she had pummeled the steering wheel in annoyance in the drive-through somewhere in Minnesota as she had waited for the family in the minivan ahead to receive their voluminous supply of wax paper wrapped fast food.  She’d had a headache pounding at the inside of her skull for most of the drive and she wanted nothing more than to find a motel, take a long shower, and crash for the night, but the drive to find Sam was pushing her past that exhaustion the same way it had pushed her to drive on at a frantic pace to reach the place where Andrew Neely had been ruthlessly stabbed to death in a Gas ‘n’ Sip.  As she crossed over into the Portage County limits she had forced herself to stop and read up on what had happened to Andrew Neely – the absolute worst thing she could do to help Sam was to charge into a situation blindly.

There hadn’t been much information on Neely.  He had disappeared out of Northern Ohio after killing his wife and kids only to suddenly re-appear, three years later, slain in Wisconsin.  Why Sam had dropped everything, his search for his brother, in order to investigate this guy’s random death, she couldn’t even imagine.  Could this Neely guy be connected to Dean somehow?  A nagging thought poked at her that maybe there was nothing to this lead, and she had just driven ten hours on a wild goose chase with only a dead-end to show for it.  Regardless, she was determined to see this through and she had stopped in at a T.J. Maxx just off the I-39 in Plover to find proper attire for the next phase of the investigations.  She had managed to find a pair of black slacks, a cream-coloured, satiny tank top, a black blazer and non-descript black leather pumps to replace her torn jeans, T-shirt and combat boots.  She had tied her hair up in a no-nonsense bun and all that was missing now to get her past the cops and into the inner sanctum potentially guarding answers to her questions was her credentials.

She was growing increasingly frustrated, knowing that her best ID for this kind of shake down had been her FBI badge.  Damn Crowley for making it disappear into thin air. “Cocksucker,” she mumbled, remembering the demon, King of Hell.  Though when she had met him he had seemed no more than a chained pet in the Winchester’s dungeon, he had proven to be a formidable opponent, manipulating demons and humans alike in order to get his way.  He was responsible for the Mark of Cain on Dean’s arm, just like she knew he was also responsible for the current state of affairs: a demon taking up residence in the older Winchester brother.

“Bugs B Gone, Pest control specialist…” Delilah read out loud frowning at the laminated ID with Delilah Franklin written along the bottom, “In what universe, would passing for an exterminator help me?  Seriously, Sam, what the fuck?”

She tossed the exterminator ID back into the jumbled mess, rummaged further and found her FBI forensics laminate that Sam had made her once upon a time when playing dress up with the boys had required more prestigious qualifications.  Her side twinged as her mind strayed to that case out in Washington when she had met the Ghostfacers.  She rubbed at the spot under her shirt where her bullet wound had healed on its own, no angel to erase it from her body.  Dean had taken care of her that whole time, staying at the bunker and bringing her food and keeping her company as she slept through her body's recovery.

_I didn’t want to hurt you, babe.  Do you have any idea how you make me feel?_

_Everything I touch turns to shit._

_I’m poison._

_Maybe if you love me hard enough, maybe you can save me._

_I don’t give a shit about you.  You’re nothing but an easy fuck._

Delilah squeezed her tired eyes tightly shut as she fought the flood of memories: words spoken, emotions felt.  Somehow she managed to shove them back into their dark hole and she glanced down at the ID in her hand again, brought back to the here and now and the urgency of finding Sam.  She frowned at the forensics specialist laminate, unconvinced that she could make a case for that particular FBI division to be on site nearly a week after the event.  At least it was FBI.  She glanced again at the contents of her ID stash box and, having no better option, she slipped the laminate into the transparent ID pouch and clipped it to the lapel of her blazer.

The headache pounded dully behind her eyes and she found herself wishing she had a drink at hand.  She looked out the windshield at the Sheriff’s building, sitting in a darkened parking lot with only the industrial white glow of halogen lights spilling out from the upstairs offices and the flickering, barely visible glow of the parking lot lighting above her.  Delilah stared up at the wavering light through the windshield, unable to stop herself from wondering if a ghost or ghoulie was around.  The light steadied, and nothing attacked her so, with a deep breath, she pushed open her car door and stepped out into the night leaving Delilah McAllister behind and becoming D. Morissette, FBI forensics consultant.  How strangely easy it felt to shed one persona for another, and so liberating.  With every step she took, more of her own made up backstory took shape, and all of her own personal short comings became irrelevant: she had been working with the FBI for five years, and before that she had worked locally in Sioux Falls as part of the coroner’s office, she had helped the sheriff there to solve particularly gruesome deaths, her notes helping law enforcement to put more than one criminal behind bars.  She had training in blood spatter analysis, blunt force trauma, and she had a minor in criminal psych, giving her all the tools she needed to become an FBI profiler, which had been her dream since first seeing Silence of the Lambs as a child.

Delilah pulled open the heavy glass door, tucking her tablet under her arm as she did so.  She made her way to the greeting desk set up in the middle of the lobby’s back wall, where an intimidating looking officer was sitting, filling out paperwork.  For a second, D. Morissette flickered and she found herself missing Jimbo, who worked the greeting desk in Sioux Falls.  What would he say if he could see her now?  The deputy here in Wisconsin looked about as friendly as Jimbo tried to let on, only she didn’t think she would be teasing this one like she did Jim.  The officer looked stern and every bit as imposing as the concrete surroundings suggested.  She forced herself to swallow, holding on to her created persona, trying to exude authority and confidence.  The lobby of the county sheriff’s department was extremely busy with officers and civilians alike coming and going, regardless of the hour getting late.  To the right of the greeting desk, she saw the sign indicating that that way lay both the county jail and the county juvenile detention facility.  To the left of the desk was another sign showing that the Sheriff’s department was beyond those doors.

Delilah walked up to the man at the greeting desk, squaring back her shoulders and preparing for the inevitable staring contest to test whose resolve was greater.  “Excuse me,” she said, politely but firmly, waiting for the man to look up from his stack of papers.  The deputy was broad shouldered, with a gut spilling over his belt buckle and pressing a little against the edge of the desk where he was sitting.  He had a crown of greying hair sitting just above his ears and the look in his brown eyes was one of someone who had dealt with every possible request, from walk-ins to those in police custody, to family members trying to get those same detainees out of custody; family members who were angry, or outraged, or desperate, and those who cajoled or bribed to get their way.  Delilah wondered idly how many people had tried to persuade this man through promise of favours, sexual and other, just to get in to see their loved ones.  This was a man who had heard all the lawyer mumbo jumbo and still knew enough to not let the bogus by.

And she had to bullshit her way past him.

“Excuse me, I’m Dana Morissette,” Delilah said with as much authority as she could muster, shedding her own first name in an added boost of self-confidence and disguise, “I’m with the FBI, investigating the death of Drew Neely.”

The man, whose ID read Deputy Chapman barely looked up from whatever paper held his attention captive and he cocked his thumb to the right.

“You want to talk to Deputy Grosman,” he said, his voice betraying a major I-don’t-give-a-shit attitude that struck Delilah dumb temporarily as she glanced towards the doors that led to the sheriff’s department.

She frowned, turning back towards Chapman confusedly.  He continued to stare at whatever he was working on and Delilah stopped herself from peeking over the edge of the desk, suddenly convinced that whatever it was, had nothing to do with police work.  Deciding to run with it, she turned back towards the glass doors and headed that way, trying to find that confidence again, while convinced that any minute officers were going to grab her and slam her into a cell in the other part of the building.

The doors led down a bricked hallway ending in another set of reinforced doors with meshed glass in them.  Through the glass, Delilah could see the busy bull pen with deputies milling about, a few civilians filling out standard forms and reports.  The officers were all dressed in blue short-sleeved polos over longer grey sleeves and tan pants, their belts equipped with handcuffs, badge and gun – clearly standard attire.  She laid her hand on the handle, expecting it to be barred in some way against random people simply strolling into the heart of the police station, but when she pushed down, it turned smoothly, and the door popped open towards her.  Trying to hide her startled reaction, she pulled it open the rest of the way and walked into the room, Dana Morrissette firmly in place.

She cast around at the officers, finding that she had apparently become invisible because no one was even glancing her way.  With a shrug and a shake of her head at the sloppy operating procedures, she began to scan the name plates on desks, looking for the name Grosman.  Her eyes roved over lit computer screens with the Sheriff department’s logo on a blue background, tidy, neat and organized desktops, side-by-side with others in various states of disarray.  Some desks had officers busy scribbling notes on forms, others were empty, devoid of their occupants who were undoubtedly out on some official errand as part of their duties – getting donuts no doubt, she found herself thinking cynically.  Finally, as she neared the back of the room, she finally spotted Deputy Grosman’s name, but it wasn’t on one of the desks, rather it was stenciled on one of the glass walled offices at the very back of the bullpen: Deputy James Grosman – Head of Investigations.  Beyond the glass she could see a man in his thirties with dark slightly curling hair kept a bit long and floppy in order to camouflage a slowly receding line.  He had a straight nose and full lips in a thin, angular face that was looking tired and overworked as he hunched over his desk, focused on his task.

Delilah breathed in, hoping her first impressions about the place were right and would make getting information out of the deputy easy.  She was overwhelmed with a sense of urgency, she had spent so much time already driving to get here, the whole day come and gone with no information about Sam’s whereabouts.  She could feel the ticking of the clock like a drain drip on her heart, slowly boring a hole into her soul as the worry gnawed at her.  She tried to remind herself that she had no reason to believe that he was in trouble, especially now that she had found the broken phone which explained why he hadn’t been answering her and Jody’s calls, but she couldn’t help it.  All signs pointed to him being on a case, Delilah hoped THIS case, even if she couldn’t see the link with Dean’s situation, and she would catch up with him eventually, but the discomfort in her stomach and the weight on her chest were telling her that there was something more, and until she had heard his voice, or seen him with her own two eyes, she was convinced he was in dire circumstances.

She raised her closed fist and rapped her knuckles on the metal frame of the glass door.  Deputy Grosman raised his head, the slouch not quite leaving his shoulders as he looked at her, curiosity and confusion on his face as he sat back in his chair.  Delilah moved into the office, glancing around at the stark decorations: a county flag and an American flag, the stars and stripes limp in the windless room, placed on either side of the small overcrowded desk, the County Sheriff’s Department seal mounted on the back wall, a variety of cabinets lining the room, additional files sitting atop some of them, like the cabinet was too full to take in more information, small lamps were doing their best to disperse the shadows cast by the surprisingly dim overhead lighting.

“Evening, Deputy,” she said, barely a few seconds having passed since her brain started analyzing and sorting the data from her surveying of the room, “Dana Morrissette, I’m with the FBI.  I’ve been sent to look into the death of Drew Neely.”

The Deputy got to his feet as she walked towards him, holding out her hand.  “Evening, agent,” he said slowly, his voice not unpleasant, a little gruff like he had just woken up and hadn’t cleared the rust yet, “I suppose that when the circus is in town, it’s only to be expected to see a bunch of clowns around.”

Delilah frowned; his words seemed pleasant enough, but the tight little side-smile and cold look in his eyes betrayed an annoyance that left her feeling on guard and slightly ruffled.  She gave his hand a squeeze and tilted her head to the side a little, returning his stare.  “And what circus is that, Deputy?”

The man let go her hand and gave her a smile that seemed to say, I respect your job title, but get the fuck out.  “You’re the second agent I see today, Ms Morrissette, for an open and shut case of self-defense.”

Today.  TODAY!  Delilah’s brain was on fire, this man had seen Sam today!  She had a hard time focusing on anything else, the deputy had seen more than one FBI agent today, and Sam had written Neely’s name on his note pad, and TODAY!

“Is the Bureau so short on actual cases that they have to stick their noses in our day-to-day?” the man went on as he sat back down.

Delilah finally pierced through the screen of excitement from being so close with relatively little effort… Winchester Tracker Extraordinaire! and returned herself to the discussion.  Now was not the time to blow her cover.  Barely a few seconds had gone by and she pulled her shoulders back slightly, standing straighter, drawing herself further away from the slouching man, who was looking at her expectantly, if a little bored.

“Bloody murder is a day-to-day event for you, deputy?” she asked, crossing her hands in front of her but keeping her shoulders stiff.

“A man has a right to defend his own life… agent.”

He punctuated the word in an acidic tone that was meant to make her feel small, but only raised her defensiveness.  Her tone became sharp, a little quirk of a smile lacing the words with honey, “And I suppose you conducted a thorough investigation to be able to say with such certainty that this was in fact self-defense?  As opposed to cold-blooded murder? Or even manslaughter?”

Grosman leaned forward, lacing his fingers together and keeping his eyes right on her.  Delilah braced herself for the inevitable battle of wills as both she and Grosman tried to claim and hold onto the top dog position.  Their eyes were locked together in this mind battle and Delilah did her best to not blink, even as she felt the prickling behind her eyes from her tear ducts trying to keep her suddenly dry corneas moist.

And then, Grosman gave in, startling Delilah again for what seemed like the hundredth time that day.  He slouched back in his chair, breaking eye contact and let out a tired breath as he rubbed the back of his head.

“Truth be told, agent Morrissette, I’m too tired for this.  It’s been a heck of a day, and I just want to go home to my dog.”

Delilah felt sad for the man.  Whatever it was that Sam was investigating, it seemed to be playing with this regular joe like no one’s business.  Just how far deep had he himself fallen into the rabbit hole?  Delilah was worried that the answer might be too far, and she swallowed hard, a lump in her throat for the man’s shattered vision of the world.

“Please.  I only want to help,” Delilah told him, her voice losing its sharp edge and softening to genuine concern.

“Help who, agent?  The only victim here was a man who slaughtered his whole family before disappearing into thin air.  So, another scumbag dead and gone is how I see it.”

“There could be much more to this than one man’s twisted past.  Failing to look at all the angles here could cost another person their life… and this time they may not be murderers.”

James Grosman raised his hands in defeat, turning his face away to look towards the corner of the room.  “Fine.  You win agent.”  He stood up and walked over to the cabinets lining one of the brick side walls.  He pulled open the drawer and rummaged through its contents quickly, like someone who knew exactly where to look but was maybe attempting to avoid the inevitable by taking his time.

Out of the drawer he pulled a dark grey manila folder like many of the others lying around and walked over the Delilah, holding it out to her.  As she took it out of his hand with a curious tilt of her head, Grosman leaned back against his desk, displacing the stacked trays of papers and files on its edge with his ass.  He crossed his arms over his narrow chest, the slight pudge of his midriff bulging out, his pants stretching across his lap then bunching as he crossed one foot over the other.

“That, right there, is all we’ve got on the victim – Drew Neeley, 45...”

Grosman started rattling off facts about Neeley that Delilah half listened to, letting her brain multi-task into filtering for pertinent information, while she opened the file he had just handed her.  The first page was just information on the victim side by side with the incident report.  A white piece of card stock caught her attention, a business card that got flipped over.  She reached for it, cradling the folder on her left forearm, and turned it over with her finger tips.  The FBI logo caught her attention right away and her eyes zipped to the name at the bottom: Lemmy Kilmister.  She had to stop the smile stretching her lips as she recognized the achingly familiar pseudonym – the lead singer from Mötorhead being an unwitting victim of Sam and Dean’s sense of humour as they pilfered rock stars’ names for their fake IDs.  _How is it that no one ever realized these are the names of famous rock stars?_   She focused her attention on the card, seeing it as proof positive that Sam really had been there, and according to Grosman, that very day.  She glanced up at Grosman, who was now describing the attack in the convenience store, while staring at a spot on the floor by the door.  She surreptitiously slipped Lemmy Kilmister’s card out of the folder and into her blazer pocket, so she could call the number as soon as she was out of the station.  For now, though, best to keep listening, in case she needed to maintain her cover later on… should the Winchester puzzle pieces fail to keep falling into place so neatly.

Delilah once again let the deputy’s monologue sink into her mind and sort itself out while she glanced down the page of the incident report, letting her mind treat the written information much like it was already dealing with Grosman’s talking.  Half-formed images of a deadly struggle between Neeley and Porn Guy started forming in her mind as she saw the violence play out like a cartoon…  well, maybe a Japanese cartoon judging from all the blood.

Delilah lifted the incident report page to see what further information on Neeley was hidden behind the paper.  Her eyes met Dean’s and all the air was sucked out of her like she had just been sucker punched in the gut and she couldn’t help the gasping, shaking breath as the shock made her draw in air loudly, and made her fingers release the paper between them.  Dean’s face disappeared under the incident report once more.

Grosman stopped what he was saying and looked up at her quickly, frowning.  “Are you alright, Agent?  I’m sorry, I know it’s a little gruesome,” he said, apologetically.

Delilah was momentarily confused, until she remembered that the man had been telling her about how Drew Neeley was killed.  “Paper cut,” she said, pretending to inspect her finger for the source of her gasp.  “Believe me, in my line of work, I’ve seen much more gruesome things than a stabbing like this.”

Grosman nodded his head in thought as he looked at her and she bent her head back down to look at the file. This time, prepared for what she would see, she lifted the page and looked down at the picture while the deputy resumed his summary of his investigation.  _What the hell?  Why would Dean be involved in this random non-sense with Drew Neeley?_

The picture was a grainy black and white print out of Dean looking straight into the camera, his face partly concealed by a ballcap, but undeniably him.  He was holding something in his hands, but all she could make out was that it wasn’t a blade of any sort.  Delilah’s gaze strayed back up to his face and focused on his eyes as they stared out of the picture with cold detachment, like he couldn’t care less that a camera had been pointed right at him.  Why was he there?  What was his connection to this whole thing?  Was Neeley a beastie that he had simply taken care of?  In the middle of the day? In a crowded Gas n Sip?  The whole thing was just so uncharacteristic of the Dean Winchester she knew.  She looked around him at the surroundings in the picture and realized that this was from a security camera.  If they had this still shot…  it meant that maybe they had the video too.

“Deputy,” Delilah interrupted Grosman, and the man looked up at her, “Is this the man who killed Neeley?”

Grosman straightened up from leaning against his desk and looked at what Delilah was showing him.  “Yeah, that’s him, that’s Porn Guy.  That’s the picture we sent out over the wire.”

Delilah blinked at him a couple times.  She couldn’t help but think that under normal circumstances, Dean would find that hilarious.  “Why do you call him ‘Porn guy’?” she finally thought to ask instead of taking the alias for granted.

“Oh!  The kid from the convenience store called him that and, for lack of a name, it kinda stuck.  Kid said this guy made a beeline for the magazine rack and went through all the adult content ones, just looking through them one by one.”

 _Right…_ thought Delilah, somewhat unsurprised and wondering who had been running the show a week ago – Dean Winchester… or a demon?  “Do you have the video this picture was taken from?”

“What is it about this guy?  It was the same with the other agent this morning.  As far as I know, he’s just another John, so why is he sending up red flags with the FBI?”

Delilah let the incident report fall back down over Dean’s unsettling stare, closed the folder and handed it back to Grosman.  “I’m sorry deputy, I don’t know what you mean. I’m just trying to catch a bad guy.”

He nodded his head quickly, the movement closer to a bobbing cork than a human nod, and then started shaking it left to right.  “No.  No that’s crap,” he said, not taking the folder from her.

“What can I say?” Delilah added, lowering the folder again and laying it down on the chair beside her.  “It is what it is.  Do you have that video or not?”

“Look, agent, it’s late.  And I have to get home to…”

“Your dog.  Yes, I understand,” she said, letting the acid back into her voice, “It seems to me that you’re trying to stop me from seeing this video, deputy.  Are you sure that you’re not the one who has something to hide here?”  Delilah shot out of her ass with a raise of an eyebrow for emphasis.

“This is ridiculous,” Grosman said as he straightened up from his desk, clearly completely done with this whole conversation, and walked back around it to his computer.

Delilah walked over to stand next to him as he bent down and clicked and scrolled through files quickly with his mouse.  Finally, the security footage appeared, and he put the video window to full screen before straightening up and away from the computer.

Delilah’s eyes fixed straight away on the tall man leaning against the magazine rack in the foreground of the video.  His head was down, the bill of his ballcap hiding his eyes and most of his face, but she would recognize Dean anywhere: the set of his shoulders, the slight bow in his legs, the overall shape of him so achingly familiar and at the same time so terrifying as her memories reminded her of the violence he was capable of with that body.  She was so fixed on him, stomach churning, her breath shallow, that she nearly missed Drew Neeley’s entrance stage right, as he snuck up on Dean, pulling an angel blade.

“And that’s intent,” Grosman’s voice cut through the fog and startled Delilah who drew back her focus to see the whole scene play out.

Neeley pounced on Dean, but quick as lightning, he had turned around, using the rolled up magazine as a weapon, and blocked the attack easily.  Neeley dropped his blade and Dean dropped the magazine, grabbing a handful of jacket to throw Neeley into a display rack, making the whole thing fall over, merchandise flying.  As Neeley struggled to get to his feet, Dean pulled out something from the back of his belt, and Delilah’s breath caught again as she recognized the First Blade.  Dean drove the blade into Neeley, and the camera went all screwy from electro-magnetic interference.  When the image stabilized again, Dean had straightened up from being crouched on the floor and turned around, walking back to the mess of fallen goods.  He sifted through the crap and Delilah didn’t have time to wonder what he was looking for before he straightened back up, dusting off the damn magazine.  He looked up, straight into the camera with that bored expression on his face from the still in the file, and then walked off towards the exit.

The whole thing had lasted barely five minutes, but Delilah felt like she had been watching it for hours – her eyes were dry, her mouth felt like cotton and she was distinctly light headed from holding her breath.  She let it out now in a slow but shaky push, hoping the deputy had not been watching her closely enough to notice.

He reached up and took the mouse again, rolling it over to the x in the top right-hand corner of the screen.  With a click, the video was gone, and Delilah pulled her shoulders back again, realizing she had slowly hinged forward, as she had stared intently at the screen.  Thoughts were racing through her head to the soundtrack of the scream of horror and frustration that was dying to escape her lips, sounding like a kettle trying to steam off its own whistle.  What did all this mean?  Clearly the angel blade in Neeley’s hand set him in that beastie category, angel or demon take your pick, but what were the odds of a demon or angel just happening upon Dean Winchester minding his own business?  Had he tracked him there?  Had he been sent by someone?  Crowley or Cain or Heaven?  Any of the many high-ranking monsters, in fact, that might have a beef with the hunter?  Then Delilah remembered the black eyes staring out of Dean’s face as he pinned her to the cold ground that very morning, and she shuddered…  What if this creature had it out for the demon possessing Dean’s body?  What civil war was being raged in Hell in the wake of Abaddon’s death?  Too many questions, and not any fucking answers for any of them.

“So, who is he?”  Grosman asked her, point blank, and she snapped back to the moment, crashing back into an attempt at Dana Morrissette, but failing miserably.

“Who is who?” she asked lamely.

“Look, I’m not stupid.  You’ve got the same look on your face as that other agent this morning before he took off.  Ten hours later, I’ve got you showing up and asking the same damn questions.  Clearly the man in this video is a person of interest for you, so who is he?”

“You showed this to Sam?” Delilah asked, the name slipping right out before she could stop herself and she saw, to her horror, that Grosman had certainly caught it, a suspicious frown forming on his face.

“What is going on here, agent.  I have the right to know if there is a manhunt underway in my jurisdiction!”

“I’m sorry, deputy,” Delilah said taking a slow, casual step back towards the door she had come in, authoritative bullshit words just scrambling to get out of her shock-locked brain, her survival instincts tapping into every crime drama she had ever watched where law-enforcement asserted itself to the lackeys around them.  “I cannot discuss the details of the ongoing investigation.  It’s strictly need-to-know, and you do not need-to-know.”

“Damnit!  If something is happening in my backyard, yes I do!”

“See, you really don’t.  Because once the perp has hopped state lines?  It’s no longer your jurisdiction, and this man has been all over the map and is part of something much bigger than a simple convenience store attack.  So, if you’ll excuse me, deputy, our time is done, and I need to move on.”

“Like Hell!  Don’t give me that government bullshit line!  If my people are in danger, you tell me right the fuck now.”

Delilah pursed her lips and turned around heading out the door at a brisk pace.  She stopped dead in her tracks though as she noticed all the heads in the bull pen turned and staring at her and the deputy, his angry words having exploded right out the open door and somehow disintegrating that invisibility shield that seemed to have hidden her on her journey in.  If she just walked out now, no doubt one of the officers would make a grab for her and it wouldn’t take much for them to see through her bogus cover and toss her straight into jail.  She had to make sure everyone in the room knew exactly who was in charge.  She turned back to stare down Grosman.

“Your tone is inappropriate, deputy Grosman.  The man I’m looking for is long gone by now, and his trail is getting colder by the minute.  I thank you for your co-operation, but if you persist in trying to stop me from conducting my investigation, you will find yourself stripped of your title and out on your ass.  Do I make myself perfectly clear?”

Grosman’s face blanched under the dim lighting, his brown eyes wide and his lips pursed.  Delilah didn’t wait for a response, she turned back around to face the bullpen full of cops, hoping against hope that her bullshit had been slung with success.  The heads that were now turned away and back to their previous work told her that she had cowed not only Grosman, but the whole room of cops.  She did not wait for them to change their minds, and holding her tablet in one hand, she walked determinedly out through the room, not glancing around and keeping her cold stare all the way out the other doors and into the hallway.  She marched back out through the glass doors that led to the main hall where Chapman was still bent over his task at the greeting desk, not sparing even a half a glance at whoever was coming from the sheriff’s department and she kept going.  She walked right out of the police station, the heels of her pumps tapping noisily on the cold hard ground as her heart beat wildly out of her chest.

She only allowed herself to breathe once she was across the parking lot and back in her rental car, driving safely away from not only the station, but the whole fucking town, getting on the highway as soon as she could and speeding northbound up the I-39 and out of town at ten miles an hour over the limit.

Her mind was a complete mess and she struggled to find anything she could hold onto that made any kind of sense to her, everything just constantly circling back to Sam being in trouble.  She was suddenly convinced that the mark had finally gotten its way and Dean had killed his brother, the whole messy timeline a jumble.  Dean had last been in Portage County a week ago, when he had killed Neeley, she tried to remind herself, and Sam had been there that very morning, there was no way Dean had killed him, he was at least 400 miles west of this fucking nowhere town, back in Sioux Falls.  The nagging thought that she had been in Sioux Falls that morning too and yet here she was, nudged at her, but she shooed it away – Dean had no reasons himself to come back this way… Unless it was to kill his brother, and round and round it went in her mind.

She had been driving on automatic, her thoughts flying dramatically, for thirty minutes before she realized she was actually on a highway heading God knew where.  She forced herself to calm down and look at the signs around her before she found herself in Canada.  She saw the exit sign for Knowlton coming up and decided she’d do best to just pull off until she could figure things out.  She slowed her speed down towards the deserted nighttime intersection, the flashing red light clicking on and off, hoping the drivers would actually stop for it before crossing the road, or turning.  She looked around at the thick tree cover on all sides and turned right, following the narrow band of asphalt cutting right through it.  The lights from the highway disappeared in her rear-view mirror and nothing was visible beyond the glow of her headlights.  It felt like she was wrapped in nighttime, heading from darkness into more darkness.  The road turned north again, and she pulled off to the side turning the key and switching off the engine.

Surrounded by a sea of leaves on all sides, the darkness pressing in on the car all around her, Delilah allowed herself to evacuate the accumulated stress and anger.  Everything from searching for Sam, to Dean jumping her that morning, to hunting a goddamned Wendigo the night before.  She hadn’t slept and she could feel it in the way her head pounded and her eyes prickled with tears.  She beat on the steering wheel in frustration while a screeching howl built up and escaped her lips, scratching up her throat on its way out.

Slowly, the feelings left her, and a numbness descended over her, a welcome relief from the stress and anxiety as she sat back against the plush fabric of the car seat.  Everything vented out, she felt empty and cold and she stared out the window idly wondering if something might be out there watching her acting like a fool.  She rubbed her hand over her face and then raked her fingers through her hair trying to decide what she would do next.  She reached into her blazer pocket and pulled out her phone, Sam’s FBI card nearly falling out before she grabbed it with her other hand.

She twirled it between her fingers while deciding what she would do with it.  She glanced at her phone and tapped the number on the card into it.  With the first ring, she raised it to her ear and waited.  She listened expectantly, waiting for the moment she would hear Sam’s voice and it would dispel all these silly fears of hers that something had happened to him.  As the second ring died away and the third started, she frowned, unsettled.  Then, that one faded too and the fourth chirped up, and she was back to having the anxiety eat at her.

“This is Agent Kilmister.  Leave a message after the tone,” Sam’s voice suddenly said out of the phone, lacking all the usual warmth and kindness she had come to expect whenever he spoke to her.  Instead of doing what that voice should have done to her nerves, it caused her to panic once more.  Where the fuck was Sam?  This was ridiculous!  He was there, he had been right there that very fucking morning!

“Damn it!” Delilah cried out jamming her finger on the cancel button to hang up without leaving a message.  “God-fucking-Christ!”  she added feeling overwhelmed and stressed and tossing her phone onto the passenger seat, slamming the palms of her hands against her forehead, rubbing at the headache that had lodged there once more.

Suddenly, from beside her, the phone started ringing and she startled at the loudness of it in the empty car surrounded by deep woods and nighttime.  She reached for it, not daring to hope that maybe it was Sam after all.  The name on the call ID told her it was not him, but she hit the accept button with a little smile nonetheless.

“Hey Jody,” she said tiredly.

“Don’t ‘Hey Jody’ me like you didn’t leave before the crack of dawn hunting for Sam Winchester God knows where with a possessed Dean in the wind and couldn’t pick up a damn phone and call me all day!” came the irate voice through the ear piece of her cell phone.

“I’m happy to hear your voice too,” she answered with a smile.

Jody made a harrumphing noise, “How’s that going by the way?” she added, sounding much calmer now that she had vented her anger at Delilah.

“Which part specifically?  Seems like you gave me a lot of things to cover here.”

“Smartass!  Stow the sass and give me the update.”

With a sigh, Delilah proceeded to tell Jody all she had found both at the bunker and in Back-of-Beyond, Wisconsin, the whole time fiddling with the card that had nearly fallen out of her pocket.  She kept glancing at the name on the card, as well as the FBI logo, absently wondering where she could look for Sam next.  She stopped her narrative mid-sentence as she stared at Sam’s new number with a frown.

“Delilah?”

“What are the odds of a Winchester having activated his GPS on his own?” she suddenly asked her, an idea forming in the back of her mind.

“That really depends on if he wants to be found, I guess.”

“If he’s looking for his brother, though…  wouldn’t he activate it? On the off-chance Dean would be looking for him too?”

“Those boys have their own ways of finding each other…  but I guess it’s possible.  Worth a try if you want me to look it up.”

Delilah gave her Sam’s number and she heard Jody typing away on a keyboard.  “You’re not still at work, are you?” she asked the sheriff, worried that she would have left Alex all alone considering what happened that morning.

“Brought the laptop home.  Too much paperwork still with that stupid rampant Wendigo.  The thing may be dead, but it’s making my life a living hell right now.  Every family member of every missing person, since ever, is flooding my office looking for their loved ones.  I keep telling them those bones are going to take a lot of time to sort through and ID, but do they listen?”

“Of course not.”

“That’s right.”  Jody went silent and Delilah could hear the occasional clicking of her computer keys.  “Seems we might be a little lucky.”

“You found something?” Delilah asked, staring out as an owl swooped in front of her from one side of the dark, deserted street to the other.

“Well, maybe.  It’s hard to tell.  I can only get a ten-mile radius, and there’s nothing much in there.  Looks like farmlands and woods.”

“It’s a start.  Send that my way, will you?”

“When’s the last time you ate?”

“Jody!  Not now please.”

“Fine…  When’s the last time you slept?”

“I’m not playing this game with you, Jody.  Just send me the information, I need to get out there to find him.”

“Delilah, I’m just trying to make you stop and think for a second.  You need to feed your brain and rest.  You can’t keep running off adrenaline, you’ll make a mistake and get killed.”

Delilah thought about how muddled and confused her thoughts were and she wondered if Jody had a point.  Her eyes prickled and burned, her stomach grumbled, and she became aware of the weariness in her bones.  “Maybe,” she mumbled into the phone, admitting Jody had a point.

“Get a motel room, get some food and rest for a couple hours.  You’ll think much more clearly after.”

Delilah promised she would and Jody finally gave her the area information that she could search for Sam in.  She scribbled it all down, then after a quick goodnight, she hung up.

Delilah stared at the numbers and then stared at her phone.  She tried Sam one last time, but only got his voicemail again.  “Sorry Jody,” she whispered to the phone after she hung up again without leaving a message.  She turned the key in the ignition and turned the car around to head back to the main highway.


	5. Chapter 5

Ben leaned back against the table biting at a hangnail on his left hand.  The smell of the straw all over the decrepit barn he had found was thick and had dug its tendrils into the sides of his windpipe, choking him up.  Or maybe that was the fucking shit they sprayed on the fields around here.  Fucking farms.

He glanced to the left where the tall, broad shouldered, long haired man was sitting on a rickety old chair.  Ben had marched him out of the car when they had arrived, using the gun he had found tucked in the man’s belt to get him where he wanted him.  From the moment he had come to, he had asked nothing but questions.  Questions Ben simply had not answered; maybe could not answer.  Questions that made Ben incredibly uncomfortable.  Eventually he had just put the volume up on the radio, making it hard for words to be heard.  He had sat, and driven, and kept a lookout for somewhere to go, somewhere remote, somewhere private.  Somewhere he could bring someone he had knocked out… and who had a bag over his head.  What the fuck was he doing?  He had been running on instinct, something telling him to find somewhere he would not be seen, somewhere the man would not be heard.  Heard? What?  What the hell was going on inside his head? He had had no idea what he would do once he finally got there, and that’s the fucking truth.

And now here they were.  Somewhere secluded.  Unseen. And somewhere the man wouldn’t be heard if he started screaming…  Why would he be screaming? Ben wondered, feeling a thin pale of fear trying to creep around him as he pondered once more about what the hell he thought he would do with this person he had nabbed.

The sound of the phone vibrating against the half-rotted wood of the table caught his attention again and scattered his worried thoughts to the winds.  He picked it up, looking at the name on the caller ID.  “Your girlfriend is calling again,” he said out loud to the man zip tied to the legs of the chair.  After moving him into the barn, he had found the kit of zip ties in the trunk, probably came from the bag that he had jammed on the man’s head.  He had secured him to the chair and switched the bungee cords around his wrists for more zip ties.  He had been confused by the man’s apparent cooperation.  Shouldn’t he have at least tried to get away?  Fucking dumbass.

He had emptied his pockets, finding a bunch of things – some strange and some to be expected for an FBI agent to be carting around with him; there was the man’s FBI badge and a wad of money, the wallet he found contained a driver’s licence, the car’s rental papers and a few credit cards however none of these had the same name on them.  He found a couple business cards for the FBI, but the name…  there was no way anyone called their kid Lemmy Kilmister.  There was a book of matches but no cigarettes.  He found the car keys and a motel key, but no other key like for a house.  There was a flask in the inside pocket of the jacket, but when Ben opened it, he found only tepid water.  A lock picking kit, a flashlight, a knife…  who the hell was this guy?  He had dumped all these things onto the old workbench type table along with the phone and the man’s bags from the trunk of the car.  Nowhere in his things did he find any mention of the name Winchester, which Ben found odd considering if he was Dean Winchester’s brother, that was his name too.

Ben frowned when he didn’t answer his barb.  “What?  Now you shut up?  What happened to all your questions?”

The man continued to be silent and Ben took the few steps separating them, clutching the phone in his hand.  He poked him in the left shoulder.  “Hey!  Did you fucking die, or something?”

The man groaned slightly but did not speak.  Annoyed with him, Ben yanked the black bag off his head and tossed it aside.  The man shook the hair out of his face, narrowing his eyes against the light from the halogen lantern Ben had found earlier.  He had put the gun down on the table with the rest of the junk, but he had taken out his own knife and the man’s eyes scanned him from head to toe, his gaze pausing on the blade momentarily.

“Hey perv! Mind stowing the rapey eyes there?  Or do you want the bag on your face again?”

The man’s eyes locked back on his own for a moment making him squirm, his stomach rolling unpleasantly as once again that feeling of familiarity tugged at his thoughts.  It was like finding a string connected to something behind a huge iron door.  He could tug on the string all he wanted, he could hear whatever it was scrapping against the other side, but all the tugging was useless since the door would not budge at all.  And so, the memories remained hidden.

The man’s gaze released him and started looking over his surroundings, the sharp eyes scanning and stopping on certain things all around him, maybe trying to figure a way out of his situation.  Ben turned away from him and walked back over to the table, tossing the phone back into the messy pile of things he had found.

“Ben,” the man finally said, a slight scratch in his voice that he cleared with a cough.

Ben reacted right away feeling the anger and frustration from his blocked memories swell inside of him.  It was not fair that this man knew him and yet he couldn’t remember a fucking thing about him.  He marched up to him clutching his knife and stopped a bare inch from his face.  “I don’t fucking know you, fuckass!  So, you don’t fucking know me!  Got it?”

The man looked calm, even with a six-inch blade jammed right in his face poised to carve him up.  His eyebrows went up high on his forehead, a look of concern on his face that only fueled the anger in him.  Then, the man started to talk, and the bottom dropped out of his stomach, “Your name is Ben Braeden, you’re fifteen, you live in Michigan, and before that in Indiana.  Your mom is Lis…”

“ _Shut up!_ ” Ben suddenly burst out, “You don’t talk about her!”

The man stopped talking and went back to just staring at him.  Ben decided it was time to get a few answers to some of the questions that were nudging him for attention – his anger insisting he forget about the door and the string and just go back to hunting down Dean Winchester and killing him.

“Where’s Dean?” he asked calmly, staring at the rough, waterlogged wood grain of the table, barely seeing the things he had laid out on there.

“I don’t know,” the man answered.

Ben felt the anger swell again and he gripped his knife tightly and charged the couple steps separating him from the man bound to the chair.  He raised his knife and seized him by the shoulder, bunching his suit jacket in his fist, the blade in his face.  He stopped just before plunging the steel into the man’s flesh, “TELL ME WHERE HE IS!” he screamed at him, spittle flying off his lips in his wild rage.

The man grunted, but his eyes did not blink and did not waver from Ben’s as they stared at each other: Ben’s anger swelled and ebbed in a strange riptide that just kept him under, unable to think clearly.  The man, on the other hand, was looking cool and calm, completely composed as he repeated, “I don’t know.”

Ben shoved off from him, getting another satisfying groan, and he returned to the table, trying to get a handle on himself.

“Why are you looking for Dean?” the man asked him.

Ben’s rage swelled once more as he thought again about his reasons for wanting Dean dead: his mother, the last three years of his life, that damn fucking string pulling at him again telling him he had been betrayed, though why he felt that way remained securely locked away.  He kept his eyes on the bag in front of him.  “Because, I’m going to kill him,” he said with dead certainty.  Then, he pulled the man’s duffel bag towards him and zipped it open.  He figured it would distract him from the terrible thoughts swirling just below the radar of his consciousness but that were strong enough to fuel and feed this anger and fear and betrayal he felt crawling under his skin, itching for a target.

“I wouldn’t do that, Ben.  He’s not the way he was.  He’s not himself.  He’s dangerous”

“Who the fuck cares?!  The way he is – the way he was…  it’s all the fucking same!  He’s just a name and a face.  But he’s going to fucking pay, you can bet your goddamned asshole on that.”

Ben grabbed the man’s phone suddenly and stared at the missed calls notification from that Delilah chick, whoever she was.  An idea struck him, and he tapped the screen, going through the options to find the contacts list.  He stared at Dean’s name for a minute, letting the anger swell and surge and take over once more as he tapped it and brought the phone to his ear.  The ringing sounded far away as he waited to see if the man he hated, the man he was itching to kill, would pick up his brother’s call.  The dull, distant sounding ring tone suddenly cut off and was replaced by a low, slightly rusty sounding voice.  “I left you an open tab at the bar.  Knock yourself out.”  Ben breathed, trying to steady himself.

The voice.  That voice.  Something about it.  It was so familiar and yet it meant nothing!  The frustration of his blocked off, blank brain fucked him up good as he both yearned for that voice somehow and also hated it with all his teenage angst had to offer.  “Sammy?” the voice on the other end of the line continued, “Did you call me just to make breathy sex noises in my ear?  Cause I gotta tell ya…  It’s not much of a turn on.”

“I’m not your brother,” Ben finally managed to say.

There was a pause, then the voice picked up again, “Clearly.  So, who is this?”

“Death,” Ben said, his brain hardly functioning as a high-pitched whistle drowned out any coherent thought.

“I don’t think so, he has more of a distinguished, chill inducing quality to his voice.  I think it’s the accent.  So, you wanna try that again?  Who the hell are you, and what are you doing with my brother’s phone?”

“I’m the one who’s going to put a fucking blade through your throat, cocksucker.  And your brother’s too if you don’t do exactly as I say.”

“What’s to say that he’s not already dead?” the voice asked, sounding cool and collected, no real trace of concern for his brother’s potential fate.

In his anger, Ben walked over to the man in the chair again, to Sammy, and held out the phone towards him as he looked up at him from where he sat.  He kept his mouth obstinately shut and Ben lashed out at him kicking him in the shin.  The man burst out with a rough cry that seemed more surprise than actual pain and Ben turned away again, bringing the phone back to his ear.

“Not dead.  But if you want it to stay that way, you’re going to have to follow my instructions to the let...”

“No,” the voice of Dean Winchester said, interrupting him.  “See, that doesn’t work for me.  I’m not gonna just show up with a million bucks, or some candy gram stripper, or even lay my head out on a plate for you.  So, you can just take your threats and shove ‘em up your ass, kid.”

Fury raged and swelled in Ben again and he screamed into the phone, “I will kill your brother, fucktard!”

“Yeah.  I kinda got that.  You go right ahead.”

Confused, Ben turned to look at Sam who was looking back at him with pity in his eyes and a worried frown on his face.  “If you’re playing with me because you think I don’t have the fucking balls to do it, you’re wrong!  I will kill him!”

“Oh yeah, you do what you gotta do.  Just know that somewhere down the line, I will find you, and I will kill you.”

“Much good that’ll do your dead brother, Dean,” Ben said into the phone growing more and more frustrated as the conversation spun out of his control.

“Whatever situation he’s in now, that’s his own damn fault.  He’s free to make his own mistakes and live those consequences fully.”

Ben seethed and raged, and his voice became shrill as he screamed at the phone in his hand, “I’m going to fucking kill you! You hear me?!”

“I hear you.  Good luck with that.”

The line went dead, and Ben stared at the phone in his hand like the piece of electronic equipment had failed him in some way.  The cyclone of his rage swelled again, and he couldn’t hold it back. “FUCK!” he screamed as he squeezed the phone in his fist and crouched into a ball, pulling at his hair in frustration.  His mind couldn’t even begin to make sense of the thoughts swirling in a maelstrom of colours and sounds, lacking any form of coherence but threatening to annihilate him.  The door in his mind rattled and shook from the force of his attempt to understand what was happening, knowing that the answer was right there and yet remained out of reach.  The anger, the rage had a hold on him so strong it was itching to get out and it was all he could do to keep it in, to keep it together.

“Ben,” Sam said softly from his place on the chair, and the concern and pity he could hear in the way he said his name made him burst to his feet again as he swung his arm, his fingers a tight fist at the end, and he slammed his knuckles against the hard, wooden beam beside him; one of the supports holding this shamble of a barn up.

The expression on Sam’s face wasn’t one of anger, or fear from being held captive, in fact, he looked like he understood more about what was going on with Ben than he did himself.  A total stranger!  What could he possibly know or understand?  Ben tugged again at that string in his mind, trying again to tap into that reservoir of memories that just wouldn’t give, his anger turning to frustration and then desperation.  He felt the prickling behind his eyes, warning him that he was seconds away from crying.  _Like hell I am_ , he told himself as he swallowed it down.

“You still don’t remember anything?” the man asked him softly, almost gently.  Odd coming from someone he had tied to a chair in a barn in the middle of fucking nowhere.

“Remember what?”  Ben asked, the prickling disappearing, and he turned to lean back against the support beam, staring at everything and seeing nothing, his mind desperately trying to find something to latch onto to distract him.

“Where’s your mom?”

“What do you care, fuckwad?”

“I’m just trying to understand, Ben.  How you ended up…  like this.”

Ben froze, standing still, looking blankly at nothing.  The room around him – the wooden walls, the hay-strewn ground, the smell of animal shit, the sounds of the frogs chirping away in the night – all of it seemed to disappear as he thought about the last time he’d seen his mom.

_“I just don’t understand why we’re here, mom!  This is stupid!”_

_“Ben,” Lisa said in her cool, calm voice, “This is important.  I need to remember.  I need to know.”_

_“Know what?  This doesn’t make sense!”_

_“Just, go to your room,” she said, her voice getting that sharp edge that told him she was getting tired of him._

_He could remember four times when she had been sharp or abrupt with him: when he had put on his roller blades in the house and broken a vase; when he fell out of the tree he wasn’t supposed to climb; when he had come home after dark on his bike because he had been hanging out at Kyle Fergus’s house down the block and forgot to tell her; and that time he kneed Ryan Humphrey in the balls._

_All those times had ended with him being grounded, and he had learned to not argue when he heard that tone, but lately it seemed like every time he spoke to her, it was there.  Like she couldn’t care less that she would hurt his feelings… or that she was scaring him._

_“How am I supposed to do that?  My room is back in Battle Creek and we’re here, in this rat-infested hell hole!”_

_Ben waited, waited to hear that sharp tone again, waited for his mom to turn on him with a “_ Language!” _like she always did when he repeated the stuff kids said at school.  He waited and watched his mom as she failed to say anything, just continued to search for something on her laptop and jotted down notes._

“She was acting all strange.  Taking us from shit motel to shittier motel, just dumping all of it on her credit cards.  Mom was always so careful with money, she always told me credit cards were for emergencies… but what the hell kind of emergency makes you drag your kid to fuck pad motels that have hourly rates, huh?”

Ben turned his head to look up at Sam Winchester.  At some point in his story, Ben had sat down at the base of the support beam and drawn his knees closer to his chest, his latest growth spurt making it awkward to sit comfortably that way, but he didn’t care. He didn’t want to be comfortable.  He just wanted his mom back.

“What was she looking for?” Sam asked him.  He was still tied to the chair, and yet his face and eyes betrayed only concern, the man was worried about him.  Why?  Who was he?  How did he know him?

“I don’t know,” Ben finally answered, “Mom just kept saying she was looking for answers.  At first, I thought she was looking for my dad, but she’d never given a shit about him before, so why would she be so desperate to find him now?”

“Do you know who your father is?”

Ben turned his head away again and mumbled his answer, “Some one-night-fuck she never gave a rat’s ass about.  She always said that we didn’t need him to be a family… and I believed her… until she got herself killed and left me to fend for myself.”

“Killed?” Sam suddenly exclaimed, looking like he got slapped in the face with a brick, “Lisa’s dead?”

“Yeah,” Ben answered, confused by Sam’s exaggerated reaction.  How had he known his mom?  “I came back from the movies and there she was; all spread out like a drunk slut, ripped open like some Friday the 13th bullshit.  Cops said she was just another whore that got put down, and I got dumped in the system.”

“When?”

“Three years ago, about?” he mumbled as his eyes prickled again and he tried to blink it away.

“Ben,” Sam said, his voice rough with concern, “I’m so sorry.”

“Yeah?  What do you care?” Ben turned away as he felt the tear break away from his eyelid and run down his cheek.  He wiped it away angrily.  “Your brother did this.”  Ben got to his feet again and moved up to stand in front of Sam, leaning over him and brandishing his knife once more.  “And I’m going to make him pay.”

“How did Dean get wrapped up in this?”

Ben reached into his jacket pocket and pinched the glossy photo between his fingers.  He started pulling it out to show Sam when he suddenly felt the cold hard metal pressing against the back of his head.

“Drop the knife and reach for the sky if you want your brains to stay inside your skull.”

The calm, yet violent words were incongruous spoken by the smooth, high, definitely feminine voice, and yet they left Ben in no doubt that whoever was holding the gun to his head meant business.  He raised his hands, one holding the knife and the other the photo as Sam looked shocked at whoever was standing behind him.

“Delilah, don’t shoot!” he said, forcefully.

“Hang tight Sam, I’ll get you out just as soon as this dick is taken care of.  Hey!  I said drop it!”

Ben’s brain was racing, he had to get away, get away, get away!  The adrenaline surged again, like when he had jumped Sam, like when he had to run from the bigger kids in the homes, and he turned around, swinging the blade where he thought the threat was, but he had aimed too high, the girl easily dodging him, spinning around and grabbing his other wrist, knocking him to the ground somehow when all he saw was a mass of long brown hair swinging around the girl’s head.

He scrambled to his feet and aimed his body at the open barn door, hoping he could get out before the crazy bitch started shooting.  “Fuck!” he heard the girl yell, and he looked over his shoulder just long enough to register the small frame dressed in a white shirt and black slacks, standing straight and aiming the black gun at him.  He registered her killer cold eyes locked on his for a second and he knew she would shoot him.

“Delilah! Stop!”  Sam called out and Ben turned back around and ran full out.  He didn’t turn around again, instead, he threw himself into the rental car he had used to cart Sam all the way out here, turned the keys he had left dangling in the ignition and spun out the tires on the loose soil to drive the fuck away from the girl’s gun, but also from the look in Sam’s eyes.  It was only a mile down the road, that he realized, he didn’t have his photo anymore.


	6. Chapter 6

“Delilah… what’re you doing here?  How did you find us?” came Sam’s voice from behind her as she watched the kid scramble away.  She had lowered her gun when Sam told her to, her time hunting with him and his brother having ingrained it in her head to trust and follow their orders.

“I learned a few tricks from a couple of salty hunters.  What’re we dealing with here: Vamp? Shapeshifter?  Ghoul?” she asked, keeping her eyes on the barn door through which the mystery monster had escaped.

“None of the above.  Not a monster.  Just a kid who lost his way.”

Delilah turned around to have her first good look at Sam since walking into the dilapidated building she had spotted from the road.  She had used the coordinates that Jody had given her, the ten-mile radius of farm country with two long straight roads and a crossroad.  Her only concern in finding Sam had been if he had been taken into the woods, but when she spotted the old barn, with the relatively new car out front and the dim lighting inside, she had stopped to investigate and found she had hit the jackpot.

She looked at the dishevelled Winchester now: he had a bloody nose that had dried and caked, his right arm was in a sling and his FBI suit was looking rumpled but otherwise he looked unscathed.  He asked her again how she had found him, and she gave him the broad strokes of her visit to the bunker spurred on by his missed calls as she put her gun back in her holster on her belt.  The burn on her hand was stinging her and she winced as she moved over to Sam’s open duffle on the table.  She looked through it quickly, her eyes registering and then dismissing the collection of weapons and IDs spread out beside it.  She came away with the wire cutters and turned back to face Sam.  She bent down to cut him free of the zip ties, her head filled with questions of her own.

“So, who was the kid then, if he isn’t some sort of beastie, what the hell was he doing tying you up?”

“Ben is Lisa’s kid…” Sam’s voice trailed off for a moment and Delilah tilted her head slightly, waiting for more of an explanation.  “He surprised me.  Knocked me out.”

“Ha!” Delilah started, catching sight of something glinting on the ground as she moved her head.  She stepped towards it as she called out to Sam, giddy that she had found him, his presence a balm on her soul making her feel calm and light-hearted, “Monsters, demons, angels, GODS for Christ’s sake… you take on all of them and come out swinging, but this kid got one on you?  What happened to your arm?  Little ol’ granny?”

She bent forward and picked up the glossy photograph paper as Sam stood from his chair with a groan, laughing sarcastically at her ribbing.  She stopped talking as she straightened up, looking down at the picture in her hand.  All coherent thought seemed to disappear as she looked down at Dean, his arm around a pretty brunette… Her thoughts came to a screaming halt as she stared confusedly at what she knew was not possible.  Dean. Happy. With a woman whose arm was thrown wide as though to show the house behind them in pride.  She had a smile on her face that spread from ear to ear, her skin a dark tan, her teeth a Crest-commercial-white, her hair loose and wavy just-past-shoulder length.  Dean was smiling, too.  Smiling like she’d seen him do a handful of times: warm and genuine. He looked so relaxed in a pair of jeans and a grey t-shirt… no gun tucked in the waistband, no bulky weapons or tools hiding in his pockets… and his arm was around this woman’s waist. And her arm was showing the house behind them.  The white-walled house on the green green lawn.  His arm.  Smiling.  Happy…

And then it hit her.  Lisa.

_Know what Lisa told me once?_

_Haven’t heard you talk about Lisa in years, man._

_Gotta move on some time._

THIS was THAT Lisa…  The Lisa she had heard Sam and Dean talk about late one night when they thought she had gone to bed.  This was her… And Dean looked so happy.  A sad yearning fizzled quietly inside her… why hadn’t she been able to make him that happy?

“Delilah?” Sam said, startling her out of her complete stupor and she shook off the stray thought as she remembered that the Dean in the photograph, for better or worse, was light years away from the one who had used her for his own pleasure and then discarded her when she had gotten in the way.

Sam’s face deepened into a concerned frown and he reached for the picture she was holding.  She let him take it, then walked over to the table and started packing away his things into his duffle.

“Delilah,” Sam said in his distinctive I-know-this-fucked-you-up-do-you-want-to-talk-about-it voice.

“We shouldn’t stick around here,” Delilah said, cutting off any further attempt he might make at getting her to open up about the weirdness that had settled on her.  “Who knows if that kid’s gonna come back.  Besides, creepy old picture aside, we have to talk about your brother.”

Sam silently agreed with her, or at least didn’t push the issue, as he helped her finish to pack up quickly.

“Good thing he took all my stuff out of the car before he drove off with it,” Sam said, as he reached for the bag full of weapons.

Delilah frowned at the odd statement, her mind straying once again towards reeling at how strange her life had become, then she grabbed the strap to the bag before Sam could and slung it over her shoulder, a sharp pain cutting through her as the weight settled on her injury.  She shoved the pain down and counter-balanced the weight so she wouldn’t topple right over.  “I got this one… You just worry about that useless arm.”

Sam pulled his bitch face at her and she nearly laughed again as she turned away and started walking towards where she had parked her rental.  That giddy well-being was filling her up again as she listened to the footsteps behind her crunching on the old overgrown gravel – everything about Sam’s presence so comfortingly familiar.  She popped the trunk with the remote in her trouser pocket and swung the bag into it with a grunt and a clang of metal, unable to soften the landing at all, the bag too heavy.  Sam came up beside her and dropped his laptop bag into the back too.  Delilah took a step back and Sam closed the trunk with his good arm.  She turned to walk past him to sit in the driver’s seat and as he shifted to the side a little to get out of her way, moving around each other so naturally, Delilah suddenly darted to the side and wrapped her arms around his waist, squeezing his tree trunk-like middle tightly for a half second before pulling away again and moving past him.

“Come on, let’s get moving before you break a pinky and become even more useless,” Delilah called back as she opened her car door.

She just heard Sam’s light chuckle, followed by a louder “I missed you too,” before she closed the door, the inside of the car temporarily dark and comforting, hiding her embarrassed blush.  She jammed the keys in the ignition and Sam folded himself into the passenger seat, reaching across himself to close the passenger door awkwardly.  Delilah quickly pulled out of park and back onto the road, headed back towards the main highway.

“So, where are we headed, one-armed-man?”

“Gotta head back west.  North Dakota.”

Delilah’s heart sank, and she suddenly grew very tired just thinking about driving another nine hours.

“North Dakota?  You think we can find a motel room first?  I think the last time I slept was two nights ago.”

“I’ll drive if you want to crash for a while.”

Delilah nodded and pulled the car over to the side of the road, her eyelids getting heavier and heavier as the adrenaline that had been fueling her the past couple of days suddenly dissipated from her system.  They switched seats and Sam took the wheel while she cranked the passenger seat back at a more comfortable angle for resting.  She would’ve loved to have changed into some looser clothing, but that was all in the trunk and her energy was slipping away quickly.  She turned her back to the window, curling her legs onto the seat, her head resting on the padded back and she looked at Sam through half-lidded eyes.  They landed on the black sling and she frowned.

“What happened to your arm?” she asked him sleepily, all joking aside.

“Demon.  I was…  hunting, with Cas and I got jumped.  Stupid accident really.”

“Why didn’t Cas heal you?”

“He’s not doing too good.  Remember Metatron talking about the stolen grace?  Well, it’s running out.  I don’t know how much angel juice he still has.”

“Oh,” Delilah said, letting the silence fill the car, her mind awake again suddenly as she thought about the implications of Castiel’s predicament, and demons and how Dean was currently serving as a meat suit for one of the fuckers.  “Why are we headed to North Dakota?” she asked, the question just one of many bouncing around.

Sam glanced at her quickly, the set of his eyebrows suggesting he was checking to see if she could handle whatever he was about to say.  He must have decided that she could because he turned back towards the road and said, “I got a line on Dean just before Ben grabbed me.  I don’t want the trail to get cold.”

Figures he had been looking for Dean, Jody had said as much back in Sioux Falls.  “How did you find him?” she asked.

“Crowley.  I traced a call I made earlier using a dead demon’s phone,” Sam paused.

“So, Neeley was a demon after all?” Delilah asked him, the sleepiness creeping into her voice as her eyelids became heavier and harder to keep open.

“Yeah,” he said, glancing her way again before turning back to look at the road, “I have to tell you something, Delilah.  You’re not gonna like it.  Dean’s…”

“Possessed.  I know.  He kinda dropped in on me this morning.”

“You okay?” Sam asked her after a quiet moment, looking and sounding concerned in the darkened car.

“Good enough to come save your useless ass, Sam,” she said with a smirk.

“Har, har,” he said unenthusiastically, clearly both relieved and annoyed with her, she smiled again at how easy it was being with him again, like picking up right where they had left off nearly two months ago.  “Listen, Dean’s not possessed.  Crowley told me that he didn’t plant a demon in him.”

“And you fucking believed him?” she asked, pulling herself out of her sleepiness as the memory of those black demon eyes staring out at her from Dean’s face popped up.  “Sam, he’s got black eyes.  Don’t tell me there’s no demon there.  I saw it.”

“I know, me too.  But if what Crowley says is true, it’s Dean’s own soul in there… demonized.”

“Jesus,” Delilah whispered, unable to process all the implications of Dean’s human soul corrupted to the point of becoming a demon.  “Is that even possible?  Wouldn’t he have to die first?”

“All demons used to be human, but that takes… years, in Hell.  I don’t know.  I’ve never heard of a soul turning so quickly before.  Maybe it’s all the Mark of Cain’s doing.  But…” he trailed off, frowning pensively.

“But what?” she prompted.

“Delilah…  Dean did die.  Metatron stuck an angel blade right through him.  I carried his body back to the bunker.”  Sam paused, and Delilah could almost feel the air in the car being sucked out as she absorbed what he was telling her.  Dean.  Dead.  Killed by Metatron.  And Sam left to deal with his grief all alone.  She felt like her soul was being ripped in two and she was struck again by how much of a selfish brat she had been leaving her best friend to deal with his brother dying… even if he hadn’t stayed dead very long, or so it seemed.  “And then he was just gone and all he left was…”

“A note.  I saw,” Delilah said, interrupting him as she remembered the piece of paper left behind on the bunker library table, its message making more and more sense with Sam’s side of the story.  “Fuck, Sam!  How are we supposed to fix this?  Not like we can exorcise him, that would just send his soul to Hell and leave us with a corpse.”

Sam pursed his lips and didn’t answer right away, when he did, his voice was soft, unsure.  “There’s the cure.”

Delilah searched her memory for a cure for demons and found a long-ago discussion with Dean.  Something about injecting the possessed body with purified blood.  “You wanna shoot up Dean, like Crowley?”

Sam shrugged, “Worth a try I think.  We just have to get Dean back to the bunker.”

“Yeah, of course, because I’m sure he’ll be dying for us to drag him back to that dungeon.”

Delilah shook her head, feeling overwhelmed suddenly with the difficulty of what they were going to attempt to do.

“Why don’t you get some shut eye?” Sam asked her, breaking the silence, “We can figure this out when we get to Beulah.”

Delilah stifled a yawn behind her hand, her exhaustion surfacing again, “What about you?”

“I’m good, at least for a little while.  If I get tired, I promise, I’ll pull off to the side.”

Delilah mumbled her agreement, and suddenly found herself being dragged under.  Her awareness swimming in all the things she had learned in the past forty-eight, and soaking it all in: Dean being a demon, that picture, Sam getting kidnapped, that kid somehow linked to Dean, demon cure…  In her half-dreaming state, she mumbled, “I’m sorry, Sam,” and she mostly heard his dismissive reply, his voice turning to a comforting warble.  Everything swirled and pressed in trying to squeeze into the funnel access to her mind, until the very last one pushed out of her consciousness and left her blanketed in dark quiet sleep.

~

_Delilah stared out the open window over the kitchen sink as the sunlight dropped into the room like weightless liquid gold that warmed her face.  The gentle breeze tumbling in the air shook the leaves of the nearby maple tree playfully and she breathed in deeply the smell of lilacs in full bloom._

_Delilah grabbed a small, dark blue, kid’s, plastic bowl from the small pile of dishes next to her and she frowned confused for a minute, feeling like something was wrong, out of place but she could not figure out what it was.  The feeling passed suddenly, and she scrubbed the plastic dish quickly with her rag before laying the now clean bowl on the drying mat._

_She heard the front door open in the distance and a boy came tearing into the front hall, arms extended to the side and making sputtering engine noises with his mouth.  Delilah turned to him, her mind once again uneasy for a flash of a second as she dried her hands on a towel.  She was suddenly filled with so much love for the little blond boy, Tristan, her mind suddenly recalled, and she tossed her rag onto the counter as he came tearing into the kitchen, engine roaring.  She barely had her arms out that he threw himself in them, trusting, like only a four-year-old could, that his mommy would catch him.  She lifted him up with an exaggerated groan and settled him on her hip like she had done a thousand times before, rubbing the tip of their noses together in an Eskimo kiss like her own mom used to give her and his happy babbling went into her ear and straight to her heart as he wrapped his short arms around her neck._

_Delilah held the boy’s warm body against her as she swung left to right rocking him as he told her all about his many discoveries in the back yard and the scrape on his elbow where he had fallen on it in the paved driveway.  Fully absorbed in his tale, she failed to hear the heavier, booted footstep on the kitchen linoleum behind her and she startled just slightly as she felt the scruff of beard against her cheek seconds before a pair of strong arms wrapped around her and Tristan, holding them tightly._

_“Right, Daddy?  Right?” the excited boy said as a strange chill descended on Delilah._

_“That’s right, champ,” came Dean’s rough voice as he spoke to his son._

_Suddenly everything seemed wrong, helter skelter, as the room spun dizzily around her.  This was impossible, none of this was real.  She felt the floor tilt under her like a rocking platform at a county fair.  She turned her head to look at Dean and the world rocked and crashed around her like a boat on a turbulent sea._

_“What’s for dinner, babe?” he asked, unaware of the chaos erupting around him as he squeezed her waist and then moved over to the sink to wash his hands._

_She stared at his broad back, dressed in a simple grey t-shirt, a pair of Levis sitting on his hips… no gun tucked into the waistband, no tools and weapons stuffed in his pockets.  Her mouth hung open, the queasy feeling inside her not letting go: this is not possible…_ Why not? _Asked a voice from deep inside._ Don’t ask me that…  Please don’t ask me that, _she begged the voice in her head and Tristan’s warm body made her face flush and her head spin even more as she stared at Dean like it was the first time, or maybe the last time, she was seeing him._ If Lisa could…  why not you? _The voice insisted._ What? _Delilah screamed at herself, trapped inside this fiction the voice had created for her._ I don’t want this! _she screamed, as she stared at Dean looking so relaxed and she clung to their son._

Yes, you do, _came the whisper from within._

_“Dean?” she asked, calling out his name in a plea to save her, and he made a questioning grunting sound as he turned around to look at her, his gaze curious.  His eyes landed on her and she felt it like a laser pointer straight to the heart.  His confusion quickly disappeared as he watched her and instead was replaced by a smile so dazzling and genuine she felt it like a sniper shot right through her._

_“Is he too much?  I can take him if you want,” he said, the smile still in place but his voice sounding like it was miles and miles away.  The kitchen darkened around her like a cloud had passed in front of the sun and she realized that the boy’s babble had stopped, and he was now completely quiet._

_The light continued to dim and the breeze through the window turned cold and she didn’t want to look at the strangely quiet boy in her arms, his body feeling heavier and heavier as she struggled to keep him on her hip.  She didn’t want to look, couldn’t look, suddenly convinced that the old dream had returned and somehow the boy would be dead, the child that she knew to her marrow was hers and Dean’s, the boy with the dark blond hair and his daddy’s clear green eyes…  She didn’t want to see him covered in blood, the first blade sticking out of his abdomen… because clearly that’s where this was going wasn’t it?  But she couldn’t look… couldn’t stand to lose what she never actually had._

_Dean took a step towards her and she tried to back away, the light in the room barely a dim glimmer as he reached his arms towards her and she backed away, cradling the dead weight of the boy against her, and still she couldn’t look at him, and she fought with herself, so she wouldn’t have to see the glazed eyes and the blood…_

_“Delilah,” Dean said to her as she backed away again, she lost her footing and she was falling, falling backwards feeling the gravity yank at her head as she toppled head over heels, and Dean grew smaller in the distance – a dot at the end of a long tunnel.  A long tunnel that turned the colour of carmine, with the rivulets running up the sides and gathering in a cresting wave above her, “No!” she cried out as the wave of blood covered the last glimpse she’d had of Dean as she fell with no wind blowing past her and the look on his face was all smiles, and joy as he whispered to her loud as a train wreck, “I love you, Lilah,” and she just glimpsed the black-eyed blink before the wave of blood came crashing down towards her_

“Hey!” Sam’s voice yelled, and suddenly she wasn’t falling backwards, but rather shaking left and right, pushed and pulled by Sam’s hand on her arm. She straightened up in her seat with a gasp as she blindly looked around herself in a panic, the dark grey interior of the car blending with the remaining vision of the kitchen and the cresting colours of the sun over the horizon far to the right and behind them.  Panic raced through her and Sam had to say her name again twice before she actually turned to look at him, for a moment, Dean’s face superimposed on his, his hazel eyes a dark grey green.

“Fuck!” Delilah cried out as she closed her eyes tightly, feeling her heart pound in her chest.  She buried her face in her hands, her elbows resting on her knees as she tried to steady the wild rhythm, the cold sweat making her skin slick.

“Are you okay?” asked Sam.

Delilah looked up, taking a deep breath and letting it out shakily.  She glanced out the window again and realized that they weren’t moving along the nearly deserted early morning highway, instead, they were parked on the side, fields as far as the eye could see with trees dotting the property lines here and there as the glow of the rising sun bathed them in fresh morning light and deep dark shadows.  Then Delilah’s eyes landed on a large shape looming out of the morning gloom and she blinked a few times unsure how to react.

“Um… Sam…”

“Yeah.”

“What the fuck am I staring at?”

“That would be a giant buffalo butt,” he said, no humour in his tone.

Delilah frowned and turned away from the enormous statue of a buffalo just off to the side of the highway to look at him, “Dumbass, I wasn’t looking at its butt.”

“Well I was kinda hoping you weren’t staring at its balls.”

“Are you fucking kidding me? They put balls on that thing?” Delilah said, with a quirk of her lips and she quickly leaned forward towards the windshield to try and get a better angle at the underside of the ridiculous statue down the road a few yards.

“No, Delilah!  Are you seriously checking that out?”

“Holy shit! They did!  Look!”

Delilah turned her head to look at Sam who was now also leaning over the steering wheel, eyes narrowed and focusing on the statue ahead of them.  “Those are some big balls,” he said after a moment, then turned his head towards her too.  Their eyes connected and suddenly they both burst out laughing.

Delilah leaned back in her seat wiping at a tear that was running down her cheek, the laughter thankfully making the disturbing dream feel far away and harmless.  The last of the laughter trailed off and she took a deep breath, relieved and thankful for Sam and his ability to make everything so much less…  intense.

“Do you get nightmares a lot?” Sam asked her quietly after a moment sounding concerned, bringing her back to the idyllic scene in the kitchen, though it was already feeling distant and harmless.

Delilah shrugged and stared at her hands in her lap feeling like a child afraid of the dark.  She stared at the still slightly red skin from her burn and thought back to the last couple of months and her nights spent drinking – or tossing and turning. “A few… I guess.  Nothing too bad really.”  Sam frowned pensively but didn’t say anything more.  “How far are we?”

“Just a couple hours out.  We’re almost in Beulah,” he said, rubbing his left hand over his face and Delilah glanced at his slinged arm again, unable to stop herself from wondering if she had been there, could she have stopped him from getting hurt.

“Did you want me to drive?  You can get a few zees.  Recharge that insane battery of yours?”

Sam turned to look at her with a small grateful smile, “Yeah, sounds good.”

They switched places again, Delilah shaking out the tightness in her cramped limbs, rotating her shoulder gingerly, satisfied that the pain was subsiding to nothing as she made her way around the car’s hood.  She settled in behind the wheel again, cranking the seat forward to a comfortable distance from the pedals.  She pulled out her phone and looked up Beulah on her GPS as Sam settled himself in the seat next to her, his long legs bent to fit in the space even though the seat was as far back as it would go.  She clipped her phone to the dash with the vent clip and then she pulled back out onto the highway, checking for stray cars.  She drove on in silence, haunted by the fading nightmare that was poking at her, forcing her to ask herself where that idea had even come from.  She had never wanted normal, she certainly had never dreamed of being with Dean as anything other than a couple of hunters, and yet…  Delilah pursed her lips, feeling nauseous suddenly and she turned to talk to Sam, wanting to fill the car with chatter rather than sit with her thoughts.  As she looked at him though, his head leaning to the side, his face relaxed in sleep, she was struck again by how childlike he looked when he was asleep.  She resisted her urge to wake him up just to keep her company.  “Stop being such a baby,” she whispered out loud and instead, switched on the radio, keeping the volume of the early morning show host low so it wouldn’t disturb Sam.

It was two and a half hours later that Delilah came cruising into Buelah.  She drove through the small plains town, glancing around at the store fronts and houses intermixed along the main road, everything squeezed together and looking like it could use a good cleaning or renovating or bulldozing, like many of the thousand other small towns she had driven through on her hunting adventures.

Sensing the difference in the rhythm of the car, Sam woke up taking in a sharp breath through his nose and rubbing his eyes.  From the corner of her eye, Delilah saw him rolling his right shoulder stiffly then let it rest within the confines of his sling, adjusting his wrinkled suit jacket so it wasn’t all bunched up.

“Hey,” Delilah said in greeting.  Sam gave her a smile, his left cheek dimpling in his few days old scruff.  Delilah smiled back.  She saw the sign for the Scotwood Motel up ahead, “Looks like our kind of joint,” she told Sam as she turned the corner and drove into the parking lot, glancing at the fifties building with its beige vinyl siding and dark brown wood accents.  “God, I need a shower.”

“Damn right,” Sam said, clearing the sleep from his throat.

“Fuck you, jerk face!” she said, as they both laughed comfortably.

Sam was out of the car and headed for the office as soon as Delilah had pulled into a parking spot.  She popped the trunk and was hit again suddenly by the dream, the memory of Dean’s pure joy as he looked at her filling her with a yearning she thought she had cured herself of.  “Fucking picture,” Delilah mumbled as she retrieved her and Sam’s bags, focusing instead on the physical weight threatening to crush her, and obstinately taking everything at once.

She trudged into the main office just as Sam turned around holding a key out for her to take.

“Why don’t you hold onto that for now, yeah?” she said sarcastically.

“Need help?” Sam asked her, that dimple back in his cheek.

“Nope!  Everything’s under control,” she said with a strain as she struggled to re-tighten her grip on the slipping straps.

Sam tried to take one of the bags, but she insisted, stepping out of his reach and nearly toppling over, so he walked past her and led the way to the room.  Delilah didn’t spare a glance for the typical cheap motel décor when she trudged into the room, instead she dropped the bags beside one of the beds and let herself drop onto the lumpy mattress, happy to just be out of the car.  She didn’t stay lying down long though, sitting up and reaching for her bag of clothes to rummage for something to change into.  As she did though, Sam disappeared into the bathroom and closed the door behind him.

“Aw, hell no!” she called out, scrambling up from the bed and slamming her palm against the closed door.  “What happened to ladies first?”

“That’s an archaic concept,” Sam’s muffled voice came through the door, “And I’m surprised a strong independent woman like you would even think about suggesting something so chauvinistic and dated!”

“What?  Damn you Sam Winchester!  This was my idea!”

“And it was a great idea!” she heard him say over the sound of the water running.

Delilah fumed trying to come up with a way to salvage this.  “I need to pee, Sam!”

“That’s gotta suck,” he answered and this time she definitely heard the chuckle in his tone.  Fuckass was having a blast screwing with her.  Well fine.

She turned the knob and walked into the bathroom anyways.  She could see Sam’s clothes strewn on the old tiled ground, his sling carefully placed on the narrow edge of the sink cabinet, the man himself already concealed behind the shower curtain.  Delilah marched over to the toilet and pulled down her slacks and panties, ignoring the weird feeling in her gut as she thought about the naked man beyond the thin vinyl curtain, determined to go through with her business.  It was just Sam anyways, she told herself.  She relieved herself with some effort, Sam calling out “Seriously?” from behind the curtain.  She answered by standing up, pulling her clothes back up and pushing down on the lever to flush the water in the toilet.  Sam’s responding yelp made all of it worthwhile and she cackled delightedly as she left the bathroom and closed the door behind her.

Sam walked out of the bathroom shortly after, his hips wrapped in a grey towel, the skin on his shoulders glinting from water drops, his damp hair already starting to settle into its usual wave.  Delilah walked past him and into the washroom, closing the door and locking it loudly to make a point.  She knew the twist lock was no match for him though, so just to be safe she lifted the lid off the toilet reservoir and unhooked the chain from the lever.

Her precautions proved futile though since Sam did not even attempt to retaliate.  When she walked back out of the washroom, wrapped in her own towel and another around her head to keep her wet hair out of the way while she dressed, it was to find Sam sitting at the small table in the corner of the room under the only window working on his computer.  He had changed into another suit, this one black.

“So, you’re hitting up the cops again?” she asked him as she shimmied a clean pair of undies up her legs.

“Yeah, it looks like Dean’s been busy.  I have a couple of assault reports here for someone who fits Dean’s description.”

“What did he do?” she asked, dropping the towel and quickly tying her bra, covering herself up.

“I’ve got a report from the local police files.  Some guy got the shit kicked out of him in front of a bunch of witnesses.  I’ve got another report from just this morning in a neighbouring town, this one was a bouncer at a strip club that got beat up.”

“Demonized Dean likes strippers on a Sunday night…  Why am I not surprised?” she mumbled as she looked at her wrinkled suit from the night before; she thought that if she had to put the damn thing on again she would scream.

She grabbed her torn skinny jeans and pulled them on, relieved at the comforting, familiar fit of her hunting clothes.  She thought about what their next move should be, clearly, they needed to verify that Dean was the one going around beating the shit out of people, but that didn’t mean they had to go together.  “I can go interview the bouncer if you want to take the local PD.”

“Yeah.  Okay,” he said, turning around as she reached into her bag for a shirt.  “Christ!” he exclaimed softly making her turn to face him, wondering where the shock had come from.  He stood up from his chair and walked over to her. “What happened to you?”

Delilah was confused for a half second until he laid his hand on her arm and turned her shoulder towards the light coming in from the window.  She turned to look down at the long thin scratches that went from just around the top of her shoulder down towards her chest.  She looked back up at Sam who was frowning down at her while inspecting her already healing wound.  “Wendigo happened,” she told him.  “In Sioux Falls.  Jody and I took care of it.”

His eyes strayed back up to her face and his eyebrows shot up in surprise.  He nodded, glancing back down at her scratches but if he thought anything about how fresh the wound looked, or about her tiny self taking on a seven-foot monster, he kept his comments to himself.  Delilah stepped out of Sam’s hold, and he let her go without another word.  She shook out the thin grey and blue plaid shirt and threw it on, covering herself up.  As she buttoned it up, her eyes strayed to the table where Sam had been working.  She spotted again the picture of Dean and Lisa sitting beside Sam’s laptop, and questions began to bubble up from where she had banished them the night before.

“So, Lisa…  She and Dean actually lived together?” she asked him as she unwound the towel from around her hair, hating how insecure she sounded.

“Yeah,” Sam answered, not giving her anything else to go on.

“Sam,” she said, grabbing her brush out of her bag and starting to detangle her hair.  “I’m fine.  I’m just trying to understand why this kid came after you.”

“Actually, Ben wasn’t looking for me at all.  He was looking for Dean.”

Sam stopped talking and Delilah had to prompt him again before he finally spilled the whole story.  A few years ago now, back when they were trying to avert the apocalypse, Delilah glazed over that one, used to Sam’s stories making the most extraordinary events sound everyday, he had made Dean promise him that if he survived, he would quit hunting and go live a normal life with Lisa, a woman he had reconnected with a few years before and cared about.  When Sam fell into Hell’s cage dragging Lucifer and Michael with him, Dean assumed he was dead and felt he had to honour his dying wish, so he went to her and her son.

“And he gave up hunting?  Just like that?” Delilah asked, trying to understand, knowing what Dean was like.

“I’m sure it took a lot of work, my memories of that time are still kind of muddled, the whole double memories thing is a mess.”

“Oh!  Right.  This is back when your soul was in Hell and your body was running around without supervision.”  Delilah was getting a headache.

“Yeah.  I mostly left Dean alone, until a nest of Djinn I had been hunting with our grandfather came after him.”

“How long did that take?”

“A year.”

A year.  Delilah thought.  A year of normal, semi-marital life with her.  She looked down at the picture of the happy smiling couple and the distinctly suburban house behind them.  She listened as Sam kept going, telling her about how Dean had started feeling like Ben was his own kid, and he wanted to help raise him, and keep him safe from all the monster crap out there.

“How come Dean left, then?” she asked, unable to understand why Dean would have given up that life, and the gorgeous woman in the photo, once he had them.  Dean’s words to Garth all those months ago came back to her suddenly:

_You got something here.  Don’t let that go.  You’ll never forgive yourself._

At the time, Delilah had foolishly thought he had been talking about her, but with this new information, she realized it went much deeper than that.  He had been happy with Lisa, in a way that he had never been happy with her.  He, Lisa and Ben had been a family.

Sam told her he had been the one to bring Dean back to hunting.  After they had gotten rid of the djinn, he had convinced Dean to hunt again.  He had tried to keep both lives for a while, be a hunter and a family man, but it was impossible to keep the two from blending together.  He had nearly fed on Lisa when he had been turned into a vampire.  It was Lisa who finally broke things off with him after he shoved Ben…  He had become the monster threat he had thought he was protecting them from and Lisa kicked him to the curb.

The story didn’t end there though, Dean couldn’t let them go.  He didn’t talk about it much, but after Sam had gotten his soul back, he could pick up on Dean’s sadness more easily.  He was unhappy, burying himself in work and ignoring his regret, but still keeping tabs on Ben and Lisa.

“Sounds like Dean was a pretty integral part of their lives for a while.  Was Ben looking for him because he needs help?”

“Ben doesn’t remember Dean.”

“What? How?  He was practically his dad for over a year…  It’s not like he was three when this happened.”

“Dean had Cas wipe their memories of him.”  Delilah sat down on the end of the bed in complete horror at the idea of that kind of violation.  Who was he to make that kind of decision for them?  “Crowley took them,” Sam went on, explaining.  “We were getting in the way and he took them to pull Dean away from interfering with his plan.  Lisa got hurt… badly.  She would have died if Cas hadn’t shown up at the hospital.”

“So, Dean wiped their memories?  What the fuck?”

“I know.  I thought it was a pretty cheap move, but Dean was convinced they would be safer without any memories of his involvement in their lives, and he walked away completely.”

“Well… that’s just fucking stupid.  It’s not like the whole monster world got a memo telling them they wouldn’t remember a thing!  That’s the stupidest fucking thing I’ve ever heard!”  Something tugged and pulled at her for her attention, _Next time you get in my way, I won’t almost kill you, you’ll be dead and gone._ She shrugged it away, dismissing the thought before she could connect the dots.  “So…  If he doesn’t remember, how did he end up tying you up in a barn?”

Sam took the picture out of her hands and flipped it over.  Delilah looked down at the words written in the neat handwriting on the white backed photo paper: Dean Winchester.

“Somehow, Lisa found this picture and she realized she was missing time.  Ben told me she became obsessed with finding Dean Winchester, she was sure he would be the key to unlocking her memories.”

“Oh God,” Delilah whispered, understanding suddenly dawning…  Nothing good could possibly come from waving Dean Winchester’s name around blindly.  It was bound to attract the wrong kind of monster’s attention.  “What got her?” she asked, coldly.

“I don’t know.  I don’t think Ben knows either.  I think he thinks she found Dean and he killed her.  His memories are still trapped by the lock Cas put on them.  I don’t think he remembers anything about monsters and hunting.”

“Kid’s gonna get himself killed too,” she said, matter-of-factly as she handed the picture back to Sam.  Now that she knew everything, she felt hollow, empty and horrified at what Dean had done to that family, and to that kid.

_All I do is attract trouble and people keep getting caught in the crosshairs._

“We have to find Dean,” she said, “Before that poor kid catches up to him.”

Sam nodded, putting the picture away in his inside jacket pocket.  They finished getting ready to question their respective targets, Delilah clipping her gun holster to the back of her belt, Sam tucking his own gun directly in his waistband.  Sam tossed her a pair of cuffs from his side of the room, and she looked them over quickly, noting the etchings in the metal: demon cuffs.  He slipped a pair of them in his suit pocket, and Delilah clipped them to her belt, using the buttoned loop for that purpose.  Delilah walked out of the motel room, leaving behind the memories that kept tugging at her for her attention.  She tried to imagine what it would be like to not remember Dean Winchester and she just couldn’t imagine what was left to remember of the past year of her life with Dean and Sam and everything monster chopped out.  No.  Dean had been wrong to do what he did, and when everything came back to normal she was going to give him a piece of her mind.


	7. Chapter 7

He sat, and stared, and waited.

He had managed to follow the car all the way here, sometimes losing sight of it in the distance, but the deserted nighttime highway allowed him to do that and still catch up a few miles down.  He felt like a spy in a movie and tried to correct the typical mistakes that always seemed to get them caught by not following too closely, not drawing attention to himself.  Still, every time he dropped back far enough so his headlights wouldn’t be seen, he had that fear; the fear that this was when they would stop for the night, or switch highways, or teleport off the face of the Earth and he would be left following the shadow of a car that wasn’t there anymore and whose ultimate destination was unknown.  But then he’d accelerate just enough to catch sight of the silver Elantra with the South Dakota plates and the green rental tag from Enterprise.

As he followed them, the night wrapping itself around the car like a shroud made of black smoke, his mind inevitably turned to his mission: avenge his mother’s death.  He saw himself as Batman or maybe more Wolverine… or the Punisher!  His was a noble mission.  He would get justice for his mother and then he would be able to move on with his life.  He’d move away on his own, stop living in the system and make his own way in life.  He would prove all those assholes in the homes wrong about him.  He wasn’t worthless, he wasn’t a waste of space sucking on their government cheques like a greedy leech.  He was Ben Braeden: Avenger of Evil.

But was he?

His thoughts had turned, somewhere crossing Minnesota, and he wondered suddenly about the blind rage and the kidnapping and the following.  Weren’t those things the bad guys did?  Even his tortured past…  Villains always had tragic back stories that justified their evil ways: Magneto, Mr. Freeze, Harley Quinn…  didn’t their pasts justify their evil ways?  Then again, a fair share of superheroes too had dark backstories: Spawn, Eric Draven, Spider-man…

Not all superheroes acted one hundred percent within the limits of the law…  Actually, most of them passed for vigilantes that were hunted by the law as much as the villains they took care of, so what made a person a hero or a villain?  Seemed to him that the line between the two was entirely dependent on the context and what he knew to be true in his heart.  He was going to right the wrong done to him.  He was going to avenge his mother’s death.  She was the innocent victim and he was her hero.  He was maybe too late to save her life, but he would finish her mission.  He would find Dean Winchester and he would kill him for what he had done to her.

With the sun rising in his rear-view mirror he had almost shot past the parked rented car on the side of the highway without seeing them.  It was only as the two occupants stepped out – Dean’s tall brother, and the tiny deadly slip of a psycho girlfriend – that he realized his mistake.  He kept driving, turning his head away from the two so they wouldn’t happen to catch sight of him and realize he was following them.

“Shit, shit, shit!” he yelled out loud once he had passed them.  It’s not like he could just stop his car on the side and wait for them to catch up!  This was North Dakota!  Absolutely no shelter whatsoever and no hiding places!  Not for a fucking car!  He thought briefly about just slowing down and letting them catch up to him, but then he risked Sam recognizing his rental car, or that Delilah chick seeing him as she pulled up next to him.  There was no way to control where they would be looking!

In the end, he came up with a plan that worked out pretty well: he had slowed down enough to keep them in his rear-view, a shadowed splotch on the rising sun, and when he saw an exit ramp he slowed down and took it, making sure they continued on the highway, and then he just went through the quiet intersection and drove up the on ramp to get back on the highway.

And now here he was, waiting in a motel parking lot, while those two fucked like bunnies with overactive libidos.  He figured they would probably decide to sleep for a bit after and he would have plenty of time to get a little shut eye of his own.  Driving was incredibly exhausting he decided as he cranked back the driver’s seat nearly flat and turned on his side.  He would just close his eyes for a little bit.  No harm in that.

~

Ben’s eyes flew open, his heart racing to burst out of its spot inside his rib cage.  He was disoriented for a moment, panic flooding his system as he looked around himself and could only register that he wasn’t where he was supposed to be in the over-bright light. It was too hot, and too close as he tried to move his arms and found them jammed against something.

A box! He was trapped in a box!  He had to get out, get out, get out!

_“Dean, what do I do?”_

_“Ben, listen to me.  Go to your window and jump.”_

_Fear. Panic. Absolute terror. Someone’s coming.  Something._

Panic welled again as something crashed in the distance and Ben couldn’t tell if it was out there, or in his own mind.  His hands scrambled around trying to grab a hold of something as slowly the shapes around him started coming into focus.  He saw the handle set in the soft fabric covering of the door and he pulled on it even as he lurched forward slamming his weight against the hard window.  The door opened, and he spilled out onto the hard pavement.

He looked around himself, the cool morning breeze playing with the longer strands of his unkempt hair and cooling his sweat-soaked face and body.  His mind raced at the alien words bouncing around like a distant echo, getting fainter every time: _Dean, what do I do?  Jump._   He slammed the heels of his palms against his eyes with a cry of anger and frustration.  What the hell was happening to him?

Slowly, context came back to him and he remembered that he had parked in the motel car lot because he had been following Sam Winchester and his girlfriend Delilah.  Because they would lead him to Dean.  Ben suddenly realized that he was exposed, sitting there on the pavement with the car door open, and if Sam and Delilah’s window was one of the ones facing this side of the building, he would be spotted in a second.  He scrambled back into the car and pulled the door shut.  The seat was still flattened back, and he crouched down, his eyes just peering over the edge of the window and dashboard.

He glanced around the parking lot, nothing at first registering as out of place.  The more he looked however, the more something seemed very completely wrong…  Where was the car?  He quickly straightened up in his seat and looked around the parking area of the shitbag motel.  It was painfully obvious that the silver Elantra had gone.

“Fuck!” Ben yelled, anger, frustration, confusion and a good dose of exhaustion making him irritable and volatile.

Gone! They’re gone! And he’s still there and he fucked up.  “Damnit!” was all his brain could muster in the way of coherent thought.  He cranked the seat upright, figuring that maybe if he drove around he could spot them.  He turned the key in the ignition but didn’t put his hand on the shifter as a new thought came to him.  He glanced at the clock on the car’s dash, it was still mid-morning.  It had only been a couple hours since he had followed them here.  Why would they have checked in just to leave again right away?

Because all they needed was a couple hours to screw like horny dogs, he thought.  But what if not?  What other reason could there be to just get a motel room for a couple hours?  Unless they got it for longer and just stepped out?

Ben hung there, suspended on the edge of two very different choices.  He could drive around and hope he somehow stumbled across the generic car, or he could sit and wait for them to come back.  He was practically vibrating from his indecision as he weighed the pros and cons of each plan of action.  The main thing he kept coming back to, was this inherent fear that he had lost them, and that was true whether he stayed and watched or drove around looking.  He had to know for sure if they had just checked in and out.

Ben pushed the door open again, his skin crawling with trepidation.  He made his way towards the door that led inside the old building.  It was like stepping into a time capsule, but not the kind that was air sealed and carefully buried… no this time capsule looked like a tin a kid had buried in the backyard one summer and forgot about.  The paint was flaking, and an ominous crack spanned the wall from top to bottom behind the worn out formica counter carefully hidden away behind a generic printed painting that was hanging slightly crooked.

The woman working the greeting desk looked equally dated and cracked.  She was middle aged, and her skin had lost its elasticity from too much time spent on a tanning bed, if her brown-baked skin in May was any indication.  She was sitting behind the counter reading a book and chewing gum, blowing the occasional pink bubble like a stereotype from an eighties film.  Ben glanced quickly around the small cramped hall and down the narrow hallway that lead to rooms both left and right.

“Beat it, kid.  Eighteen plus to rent a room,” said the surprisingly smooth voice of the woman behind the desk.  He had expected a rougher sound to come out of her: smoke damaged vocal chords to match the UV damaged skin.

“I’m looking for someone.  They checked in a few hours ago,” he said, unsure if he should try to sound more authoritative or more unsure of himself.  Either way, whatever came out was just his usual, perpetual anger.  “A man and a woman.  He’s like…” he tried to think of how tall Sam was, still unused to his own freshly sprouted height.  He settled for reaching his hand above his head to show he’s looking for a near giant.  “And she’s smaller, like maybe up to my shoulder?”

“Yeah,” the woman said, putting aside her novel and sizing him up, “Maybe I saw ‘em.”

Ben felt a modicum of hope dare to inch itself in and he pushed on, leaning his hands against the desk in his enthusiasm.

“Did you notice when they left?  Did they check out?  Are they coming back?”

“Can’t say,” she continued, sitting back in her chair and just watching him with a dry, stretch of her red painted lips.

“Can’t say what?  You didn’t notice if they came back out?  The fuck you doing at this desk then?”

The woman lost her amused grin and gave her gum a couple chews before she answered, “Kid, I don’t have to tell you anything.  It’s not about doing my job right.  I do my job.  You’re just not making it worth risking my job to tell you shit.”

She leaned forward interlocking her fingers on the desk in front of her as she looked up at him with an expectant grin.  Ben shook his head slowly left and right completely bewildered.  What was he supposed to do?  As he cast around for something to say, his eyes caught something that made him look back down at the little registration book sitting open on the edge of the desk.  _Angus Young_.  The fuck?  What was the guitarist from AC/DC doing in this nowhere town?  Then he remembered that Sam had gone by Kilmister back in Wisconsin.  He thought it had been odd then, because any self-proclaimed metalhead knew that Kilmister was the frontman for Mötorhead.

“Son of a bitch!” Ben whispered under his breath and the irritated desk attendant rolled her eyes and picked up her novel again.  Ben looked at her quickly and realizing she wasn’t stopping him, he looked back down at the register.  The so-called Young had signed in with a plus one that morning.  No one had signed in since then, and from the looks of it, the booking was still open.  They hadn’t checked out after all!  Which meant that wherever the silver car had gone, it was going to come back.

Ben blurted out a thank you, realizing that they could be back soon, and being caught there in the lobby would not be good.  He scrambled back out of the door, glancing again left and right down the hallways to the rooms, certain that he would see Sam or Delilah right there and they would have seen him too.  He stumbled off the sidewalk in the parking lot and caught himself before falling to the pavement but then turned and rushed back over to the car.  He pulled the door open, sat down and closed the door again, scooting down to just below the edge of the window so he could spy on the car’s return.

They were his ticket to finding Dean, he knew.  He could just let them do all the hard work looking for him, and all he had to do was tag along.  And when they finally caught up to him, he would be right there, and he would take his revenge.


	8. Chapter 8

Delilah lurked around the Angelz Strip Club in Killdeer with her freshly minted Beulah, North Dakota police detective badge, curtesy of the Beulah Kinkos and Sam Winchester’s counterfeit skills.  She opened the leather ID case Sam had made her for her birthday and stared at the generic six-point gold star molded into it.  It wouldn’t fool a police officer of any given county, but for interviewing civilians, it would work fine.  She glanced again at the atrocious picture he had managed to take for her photo ID, trying to convince her no one would actually look at it if her bullshit game was strong enough.  Well, seeing that she had no intention of ever showing that awful picture, she’d just have to make sure she was at the top of her game.

She glanced at the posters of scantily-clad women in Marilyn-style suggestive poses – pouty lips, half-lidded eyes, cleavage just spilling out of too-tight tops – and shook her head.  She knew, from what Sam had told her about his brother a long time ago, that Dean enjoyed going to strip clubs; he liked watching the girls dance.  She never saw the attraction personally, what was the point of looking if you couldn’t touch?

She pulled on the black handle set into the heavy red-painted door half-expecting it to be locked and found it opening just fine.  She stepped into the large open space.  The Y-shaped stage with its sturdy poles and the edges lined in strands of plastic-covered soft white light bulbs was right in front of her.  She quickly scanned the room, noticing the slightly raised platforms interspersed with the booths and chairs; for closer shows, she supposed.  There were so many mirrors, Delilah didn’t quite know where to look without spotting herself in the glass: a petite brunette who looked out of place and more than a little pale in the mixed lighting: coloured spot lights moving and rotating seemingly at random around the room and reflecting off disco balls and mirrored ceilings.  The music was already blaring, though no one was on the catwalk-like stage, and the house lights were up too, casting much more light, she was sure, than the operating hours were accustomed to.

“We’re not open yet, sweetheart,” said a high nasal voice from behind the bar to her right.

Delilah turned towards the man who had spoken, sizing him up.  The bartender was average height and build, wearing a black t-shirt that reveled two sleeved arms – a mixture of skulls and roses creeping up the limbs.  His head was shaved to the skin and there was a dark, calculating quality to the way he looked out on the room.  He was cleaning glasses in the time honoured, if a little cliché, ways of bartenders all over.  As she drew nearer, she realized that the tattoo artist had managed to weave women’s bodies into the negative spaces of the design, the shapes looking like they were writhing slightly with the movements of his skin.

“I’m here on business actually,” Delilah said, bringing her eyes back up to look the bartender straight on.

The man gave her body a slow once over that made her skin crawl, “Amateur night is on Thursdays, if you want to make a few bucks.”

She resisted both her urges – to hold her shirt closed just above her breasts and to punch the guy’s lights out – and instead pulled the leather case with her fake badge out of her back pocket and flipped it open to show him the six-pointed star.  “I’m Detective Nicks with the Beulah Police Department,” she said firmly before flipping the badge closed again and stuffing it back in her pocket.

“That’s fine by me, my customers love a good cop act,” the man said, a sleazy smile spreading on his face revealing a single diamond inset on his upper canine.

Delilah was fuming on the inside.  It was men like him, a man who could only see a woman as a sexual object, who couldn’t think past his itchy cock, that had made her adolescence a living hell.  But she wasn’t that scared little girl anymore.  “Are you the manager here?” Delilah asked, not a shake in her voice, keeping her eyes firmly locked on his, asserting her (fake) police title given authority over the man.

“Owner/operator, Stan Myles.  Most people ‘round here call me Smiles,” he said, stretching his lips into a large smile again.

“Alright, Smiles, I’m currently looking for a man who’s been assaulting people in bars, out my way.  Word is from your local PD that you might have had an encounter with him here.”  Delilah pulled a copy of Dean’s photo that Sam had given her to ask around.  It had been cropped from another photo, taken a few years back by the look of his smooth face, but she couldn’t make out the surroundings.

The obnoxious smile disappeared from the man’s face as he looked down at the picture.  “That asshole took out my best bouncer, last night.”

“What happened?” Delilah asked, putting away the picture, trying not to get overly excited that Dean had been there just the night before, it certainly didn’t mean he had hung around.

The man they called Smiles looked at her, the sleaze gone out of his eyes completely and all that was left was the pensive calculating look of a man just this side of shady trying to decide what to tell the cops.

“Listen,” Delilah said, dropping her tone to sound more confidential.  “All I want is to catch this guy.  Whatever else you got going on around here is none of my business.”

“What else is going on?  Detective, I run a legitimate business.  I file my taxes like every other Tom, Dick and Harry.  I have a strict hands-off policy here that makes sure my girls are safe to dance without being harassed by the customers.  Alright?  So, I don’t need the cops from the next town over getting all up in my business and making me feel like I’m the devil, got it?  You ask any of the dancers, and they’ll tell you the same.  You won’t find no backroom, after hours scheme here.”

Delilah was taken aback by the man’s sudden anger, had she misjudged him?  Seems Smiles was just doing what she had been doing, putting on a face for the needs of the immediate role.  Putting on a show of what people expect from the owner of a strip club.

“My girls feel valued here, safe.  And then this asshole comes around and starts getting grabby with Cherry.  Blake came in to run interference like I pay him to and this guy just fucking attacks him out of nowhere.  Broke his nose, his arm, a couple ribs.  My best man, out cold on the floor and this guy is going to town on him.  I called 9-1-1, had no choice, I was sure he was gonna kill him.  Fucking maniac.  Pardon my French.”

“What happened next?” Delilah asked, seeing all too well that familiar anger fueling Dean’s actions.  She saw him hacking away at the man in the convenience store surveillance video and then, even more vividly, the look of violence in his eyes as he attacked her in Sioux Falls.

“Next?  Nothing.  The guy stands up, calm as you please, knocks back his drink, grabs his money off the stage and his coat and walks out.”

Delilah swallowed the bitter taste in her mouth.  This image of a violent and hate filled Dean superimposed on the happy, caring Dean that kept trying to claw its way out of her subconscious desires and crushed it cruelly.  Being reminded now of what he was capable of, and what he had done lately, even before becoming a demon, filled her with a deep revulsion.  “Do you have any idea where he was going?”

“Best guess is that he crawled back down the rat hole to Hell he climbed out of.  One thing’s for sure, if he ever shows his face around here again, I’m not giving him the chance to attack another one of my employees.  I’ll put one between his eyes before he even sits down at the bar.”

Delilah couldn’t fault the man for thinking this way.  If she wasn’t so determined to save Dean, for Sam’s sake, she’d be tempted to shoot him dead too.  If it were only that simple.  She reached into her shirt’s breast pocket and pulled out one of the business cards Sam had made for Detective Delilah Nicks that morning.  “Thank you for your help, Mr. Myles.” She reached across the bar top and held her card out to him.  He took it, giving it a once over with raised eyebrows. “If you can think of anything else, or if you see him again, please call that number.”

“I’m not making any promises that I won’t shoot him first.”

“Sounds about right to me.  I’d still appreciate the courtesy call though.”

Smiles gave her an appraising look, only this time, instead of sleaze, his eyes spoke of respect and mutual understanding.  “Just make sure you catch this bastard.”

Delilah nodded and headed back out towards the door.  She shielded her eyes against the bright glare of the late morning sun, the difference making the inside of the club look dark and cave-like.  Her mind was busy sorting the new information, though she realized that she wasn’t much more ahead than she had been before driving out here, she did manage to get a confirmation that Dean had been there the night before.  Beyond that, though, there were no new leads.

She glanced around quickly, the hairs on the back of her neck standing on end as she half expected Dean to turn the corner and attack her.  There was no one there though.  No one but the typical light pedestrian traffic of a Monday morning in a mostly deserted entertainment district.  Delilah pulled out her phone and tapped Sam’s number.

“Agent Kilmister,” he said almost right away, before it even had time to ring.

“I still can’t believe people don’t see right through that one,” Delilah said, entertained like she always was by their pseudonyms.

“Do you have that report ready for me?” he asked her, not dropping the FBI act, making Delilah frown.

“You can’t talk?”

“Right,” he answered.

“Alright, well I’m done with the strip club.  Want to meet me at the Biggerson’s in an hour?”

“I’ll meet you there.”

Sam hung up and Delilah stared down at her phone a moment before stowing it safely in her jeans pocket and heading back to where she had parked the rental car.  She hoped that Sam had had more luck getting information on his end, otherwise they’d be back to square one.  She did a u-turn on the street and headed back towards Beulah.

~

Delilah walked in through the glass door of the brightly lit family restaurant chain and swept the place with her eyes, getting a sense of the area and the potential dangers.  There was an ordinary mixture of people sitting at the wooden tables and chairs stained to look like cherrywood.  There was a mix of the casual work lunchers, a small group of retirees, and a couple families with young children, but mostly the restaurant looked empty, the bulk of the lunch rush over, and weekday schedules making lingering difficult for the majority of patrons.  She couldn’t see any obvious signs that they were anything but the happy normal people of the world.  Could the happy couple with the new bouncy baby be a family of werewolves in disguise?  Was the waitress disappearing behind the swinging kitchen door a shapeshifter?  Or worse, could any of these regular human looking people be meatsuits for angels or demons?  Delilah felt a pang of regret at having lost her previous innocence of all things monster… then again… Hadn’t she always looked around at the happy normal people and wondered what happened behind closed doors?  If the fathers loved their daughters like they should? If the lone men were rapists or abusers?

She spotted the head of brown hair sitting alone in a booth leaning in over his computer while he waited for her and Delilah tried to shed the coldness that had settled over her.  The sun was streaming in through the window and she was glad Sam had picked such a bright spot, maybe it would help her banish the dark thoughts.  She wondered suddenly, the thought just popping in her head, what Sam, who had been taught to find monsters his whole life, saw when he looked around the diner.  She moved up to the table and plopped herself down on the bench across from him letting the thought dissolve to innocuous dust, resting at the back of her mind.

“Hey! Sorry it took me so long.  I had to give Jody a status report before she sent out the cavalry to Wisconsin.”

Sam looked up, a wide smile brightening up his face.  He had removed his suit jacket, she could see it where he had put it on the bench seat beside him, and rolled up his shirt sleeves to his elbows, his right arm was still firmly held in place by the brace strapped tightly around his left shoulder.  His grey and green tie was loose too, the top button of the shirt undone underneath.

“How is she?”  he asked her, an affectionate sparkle in his hazel eyes, the colour pulling towards the light green of his brother’s in the afternoon light.

“She’s good.  Her and Alex are getting along great.  She’s relieved you’re alright, by the way.”

Sam chuckled, looking a little shy, “Yeah, Jody is good people.  She worries too much though.”

Delilah quirked her lip, recognizing the look of someone who didn’t think he was worth fussing over.  She didn’t say anything though, knowing that if she pushed it, he would only get more embarrassed.  He asked her about Alex, and she told him about Jody taking in the stray teenager and just not letting her go.  Sam looked happy again, that quirk in his lip back, to learn that she was attending school and mostly getting through her days like any other jaded teenager.

A waitress in a red polo and apron over a black skirt came to their table holding a note pad.  “Welcome to Biggerson’s!  Can I start you folks off with something to drink?”

“Water for me, thanks,” answered Sam, giving the waitress a smile like he just could not help his happiness shining out.

Delilah ordered water too and noticed, out of the corner of her eye, the waitress’s glance rolling back over to Sam like magnets drawn to that radiance.  When he didn’t look back up, the man fully absorbed in reading the menu, completely oblivious to the intense eye-ing that was happening, the poor girl left to fetch their water.  Delilah shook her head and picked up her own menu.

“Sam freakin’ Winchester.”

“What?” he asked, confused, shaking back a lock of hair as he looked at her.

“Seriously?  That girl was totally giving you the “Hey, I like you, you’re cute, wanna hook up?” eye contact.”

“What?” Sam exclaimed, his voice going up a half register, making Delilah chortle.  “No, she wasn’t.”

“Hells yes, she was!  And she’s totally cute too!  Seriously, if you want me to disappear for a bit tonight, I got no problem with it.”

Delilah couldn't stop her lips from twitching into a smile as she teased him.  It felt so good being with Sam again.  His face fell into his customary look whenever someone was fucking around with him, and he frowned, “I’m not gonna do that.  You’re insane.  Actually, you’re starting to sound like Dean.”

“Take that back, asshole!  Besides, I’m right, and you know it!  Right now, I would bet you lunch, that that girl is scoping out the table to see if I’m a threat.  Look around, you’ll spot her for sure.”

“Shut up,” Sam said looking more and more adorably awkward by the second as he turned his head to look towards the kitchen counter.  “She is no… Oh shit.”

Sam turned his head back so fast Delilah was sure he would have whiplash, and she pumped her fist behind her menu puckering her face in mock victory.

“Stop it, what is that?  Are you like five?”

“No!  I just love it when I’m right!  Especially when being right gets me a free lunch!  Oh!  Look alive Sammy, here she comes.”

“Don’t you dare do any…”

“Hi again!  Are you ready to order?” the chipper waitress said, putting their glasses of water down on the table.  Sam suddenly went completely quiet and awkward.

“Yeah! Hi… Stephy,” Delilah said, turning her head a little to read the waitress’s name tag. “I’m gonna have a classic burger and fries combo, and my brother Sam, here…  Well he’ll probably get something boring and healthy, ‘cause he’s like that.”

Sam cleared his throat, too awkward to even give her his bitch face, his eyes glued to his menu anyways, before finally saying, “I’ll have the garden salad.”

“Is that all?  I can probably throw a breast on there if you’d like,” she said, half-innocently, clearly deciding to go for it now that Delilah had proclaimed Sam her brother and possibly available.  She had to duck down behind her menu again to hide her amused smile.

“Excuse me?” Sam said, looking right up at the pretty girl with the wide smile and the pretty brown eyes, bewildered.

“Chicken breast.  On the salad,” she specified.

“Oh! Right!  Of course.  Uh… yeah, that sounds good.  Thank you.”

He closed his menu and handed it to the smiling waitress and Delilah did the same, having regained her composure.  “Yes.  Thanks, Stephy, that’s great,” she said.

The girl turned around again, she had to be about five years younger than them, for sure, her long brown hair swinging all the way down her back as she walked away with a little bounce in her step.  So carefree and innocent, Delilah mused to herself.

“Are you done embarrassing me?” Sam asked her when Delilah turned back towards him.

“Come on, Sam.  You can’t tell me that you don’t want to spend a hot night with that cute girl.”

“What are you, my pimp?”

“No!  Hell no, Sam!  When both parties are willing and able, I call it matchmaking.”

“Who said I was willing?  Or able for that matter?” he said, waving his left hand towards his braced and useless right arm.

Delilah purposely let her eyes drop to his crotch, “Oh god!  Don’t tell me you sprained your dick in that fight too!  What kind of demon were you fighting?” she asked sarcastically as she brought her eyes back up to his face, pleased to see the most perfect annoyed look and a hint of colour in his face.

“We don’t have time for this,” he told her firmly, “We have to find Dean, remember?”

Delilah lost some of her lightness, suddenly brought back to the heart of why they were there together, in a diner, in North Dakota.  And it was not for some fun light flirting.  She looked at him appraisingly.  “Yeah, Sam.  We have to find Dean.  And we will.  But seriously, you’re not a fucking monk.  You always told me, in these kinds of situations, to go out with the guy, to have a little fun.  So, this is me returning the favour, dumbass.  A little fun won’t kill you, and we’ll still find Dean and take care of that problem.”  Sam was looking at her unconvinced, a deep frown set on his handsome features.  “Promise me, you’ll at least consider it if that girl has the balls to slip you her number.”

By the set of Sam’s pinched lips, she could tell that he was done discussing the matter and before he could bite her head off about it, she switched the subject.  “So, what did you find out with the local law?”

Sam sighed, sitting back against the padded back of the booth.  “Not much,” he said, taking a sip of his water, “I showed Dean’s picture to the station chief and turns out that there’s been a string of bar brawls and minor assaults associated to a man that fits Dean’s description.”

“So, we were right?  Dean’s been causing trouble?  Did you get the names of the vics?”

“Yeah, I did, and all the attacks happened at the same place, the Black Spur.  It’s a bar near here.”

“Okay.  That gives us a good place to start, maybe check out the bar, see if anyone on staff or the regulars remember him.”

“Right.  That’s not all though.  A couple nights ago, there was a stabbing just outside that same bar, in a side alley.”

“Did you check out the corpse?”

“Yeah, I was at the coroner’s when you called earlier.  So, get this,” Sam led into his description, leaning forward over the table towards her, recovering his usual fervor when talking about a case, “The coroner thinks the whole thing is an elaborate prank.”

“A prank? Why?”

“Because, according to his assessment, the body has been dead for over a month.”

Delilah frowned, “So… no stabbing?”

“Oh no…  The body was definitely stabbed.  But the wound was post-mortem.  Whoever did the stabbing, stabbed a corpse.”

“But that makes no sense, unless…  unless the body was walking and talking without pumping blood.”

“Exactly.  I think Dean dispatched a demon in a dead suit.”

“Dean…  But, Dean’s a demon himself… and chumming around with Crowley.  Why would he be going around killing other demons?  That makes no sense.  Are you sure it was him?”

“The coroner described the weapon used.  It would have to be something big and pointed, but not very sharp, most of the tissue was torn more than cut.  And it was done with a lot of strength based on how deep the damage went.  He also said there was some shredding along some of the organs and the skin that suggests the blade had a serrated edge…  but again, it would have been very dull, because everything was just torn up.  If the guy had been alive at the time of the attack, there would’ve been a lot of blood.”

An image of a slaughtered Abaddon flashed in her mind, and she recalled all the blood that had pooled around the body and sprayed all over the furniture, walls, and Dean.  _She wiped the blood off his face gently with the torn hem of her dress_ … that stupid grey dress… _The sound of the fabric tearing was loud in her ears and she felt it rip her to her gut_ \--

“Delilah?”

She shook herself, brought back to the moment, with Sam, in the sunlit diner, where nothing bad had ever happened.  “Right!  So, I’m guessing you’re thinking the First Blade?”

“You sure you’re okay?  You got really pale there.  I thought you were going to pass out.”

“I’m fine, Sam.”

Delilah reached for her water and took a big sip, trying to re-hydrate her suddenly dry throat.  Stephy’s return with their food stopped Sam from insisting and gave her the chance to recover from the memory’s jump attack.  She just caught Sam’s shy smile to the waitress, his dimples reappearing even as he dropped his head a little forward, letting his hair obscure his face a bit.  She didn’t catch their chatter, but she heard his quiet chuckling laugh bubbling out of his chest like an effervescent child.  _Careful, Sam_ , she thought, _poor girl’s ovaries are gonna burst._

After Stephy’s departure, accompanied by a cheery “Enjoy,” Sam and Delilah returned to discussing their next step while they had their lunches.  Delilah picked at her fries for a while, not really hungry much anymore as she continued to be distracted by the leftover feel of that memory.  Sam figured they could start with the guy Dean had beat up just a few days before, on the Friday.

Friday.

The date stuck in Delilah’s head.  On Friday, she and Jody had hunted down, and she had confronted the wendigo.  How long ago that seemed to her.  She reached up to her shoulder and rubbed at where the wound still felt bruised but otherwise was healing fine.  She had gone up against a wendigo, and she had come out on top.  And Dean had beat this guy to a pulp.

Delilah agreed that they should start with the victim of the assault, but she still insisted that they go have a swing at the Black Spur afterwards: more witnesses, and potentially more leads.

A plan in place, they wolfed down the rest of their lunch, ready to get back to their hunt.  Delilah had nearly forgotten about the waitress as she stood up to go visit the washroom before they left.  Sam was putting away his laptop and she crossed Stephy heading to their table with the bill.  When she got back to Sam, he was standing, in the process of gingerly putting on his suit jacket again.  Delilah noticed the upside-down restaurant bill on the table and the money sitting on top.  With a frown, she reached for the bill, ignoring Sam’s ineffectual protests.  Scribbled at the bottom of the paper was the name Stephy with a ten-digit number.

“And you were just going to leave this here?” Delilah whispered, somewhat disappointed with him.

“I don’t want to give her false hope.”

“Sam.  You’re a fucking clueless shit sometimes you know that?”  she scolded him as she folded the paper and stuck it in her breast pocket with her business cards.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m keeping this.  Safe keeping.  ‘Cause obviously you can’t be trusted with it.”

“Delilah, seriously…”

“No Sam!  You seriously.  You are calling this girl later and that’s final.  That way, I won’t feel so awkward when I go find my own piece of action tonight.”

Sam’s eyebrows shot up in surprise for a moment and then he rolled his eyes in realization.  “This was never about me!  This is about you,” he said, sounding halfway exasperated.

“Well, duh, genius!  It’s about both of us,” she said, waving at the door, “Now get your tight tush out the fucking door so we can get back to business.”

“You calling me a tight ass?”

“I’m saying we could play quarters off that toned body of yours, freak.”

“You been checking me out, Delilah?”

“If you’re going to parade around in a towel, what did you expect?  Just because all you see when a girl is standing around in a bra is her battle scratches, doesn’t mean the rest of us are blind… dumbass.”

They bantered all the way to the car, the warm sunshine and Sam’s laughter a comfort to her but not quite banishing the cold vise that had been steadily tightening around her heart since they had started chasing Dean.  Putting on the mask for Sam though seemed to help her cope with some of the thoughts, part memory and part conjecture about Dean’s behaviour, that were constantly swirling around in her head.  Let Sam think that she was up to her old tricks, that she was feeling normal, and strong as ever.  Let him be distracted by a pretty face tonight, while she hugged a bottle of Jack to herself to drown the cold in liquid heat.

~

Delilah stood by the Ikea living room unit, with the large flat screen TV and the photos and weapons displayed along the top shelf.  Everything was meticulous and clean, each gun or knife displayed on its stand and oiled to perfection.  She looked at the pictures of the couple looking perfect and ideal in each one, smiles on their faces as they looked into the camera.  No candids for these guys.  The rest of the room was much the same, giving off that vibe of perfection, of total control: not a pillow out of place and not a ring on the coffee table.  From the moment she walked in behind Sam, and started looking around, she could feel that tingling on her neck, that skin crawling she always got when she was in the presence of inherently violent men, the kind who asserted their dominance over the weak through abuse: physical or otherwise.

She had let Sam take lead on the questions, as she passed for more of a liaison between the local PD and the FBI than as leading her own investigation.  She half listened to the questions and answers, trusting that Sam would find out all that he could about what had happened between this guy and Dean to warrant such a beating.  Dean had practically destroyed the guy’s left side of the face, the skin around both eyes was swollen and black, his nose in a brace, his cheek and jaw a kaleidoscope of purples, reds and sickly greens and yellows and his lip swollen and cut.  Classic face of someone who had been in a bar brawl, but when she glanced down at his hands, they were immaculate: no split or bruised knuckles that would suggest he had hit back as hard.  In fact, there didn’t seem to be any sign that the man had fought back at all, painting a vivid picture of a savage beating that was entirely one sided.

She looked around the room again, trying to find a good and noble reason why Dean would have gone to town on him, and all she could see was Dean’s fists flying at her own face.  She had probably looked much like this guy when Sam and Castiel had found her comatose on the cement floor of the angel compound.

Sam wrapped up the interview, and Delilah was glad that she had been spared the need to talk in there, unsure what kind of questions would have come from her while her memories held onto her so tightly.  And while she searched for a reason for the violence.  _Dean is a monster_ , she reminded herself, _that’s his reason now_.  Certainly, that’s what the victim thought.  He had told Sam that he hadn’t done anything to provoke Dean, he just attacked him out of nowhere and next thing he knew he was riding in the back of an ambulance.  He had never seen him before, and he hoped to God to never see him again.  Sam and Delilah left the small apartment, Sam giving the man his business card in case he thought of anything else; standard operating procedure.

“We need to go check out that bar, Sam.  There’s something that he’s not telling us.”

“Yeah,” he answered, “I got that too.”

They got back into the rental car, and Delilah navigated the streets until they found the Black Spur nestled at the back of a lot with a fenced terrace-style cement slab out front with tables and parasols just waiting for the wave of steakhouse, bar and grill patrons that would be coming in around dinner.  For now, though, the place was looking very quiet.

Delilah glanced at the banner hanging from the railing around the bar’s main entrance.  _Wanna be a superstar?_

“Looks like this place’s call to fame is the karaoke.  Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays,” she told Sam as they walked around and up the steps to the main door.

“Huh,” Sam said without further comment.  He opened the solid metal door and held it for her as she walked past him and inside the bar.  The contrast between the Biggerson’s where they had had lunch and this place was almost night and day.  As brightly lit and cheerful as the family chain restaurant had been, this bar was dark, with very few windows letting in the streaming sunlight.  The floor was a dark wood, the tables and chairs were dark wood, the bar was dark wood, even some of the walls were partially covered in slats of dark wood, the remaining plaster painted a rich mahogany red.  The lighting was dim, giving the place a late-night glow even in the middle of the day.  Just like the Biggerson’s though, the Black Spur seemed to be suffering the mid-day start of the week slump in customers; very few people were hanging about, a skeleton staff tidying up lunch leftovers and cleaning the tables to get them ready for the dinner crowd.

Sam walked past her as she looked around, and headed straight for the bar, already getting his badge out of his jacket inner pocket, though a little awkwardly due to the sling.  Delilah took a few steps into the room proper, slowly looking around.  It was quite large, with small round tables that were set up around the elevated stage section that had another large banner announcing the karaoke nights and the cash prizes for those brave enough to stand front and centre and sing.  Delilah suddenly had a flash of Dean singing Over the Hills in her ear, the sound more akin to torture screeches than singing and she dearly hoped for these poor people that he hadn’t been serenading them.  The stage was set up for karaoke, though today was not one of the nights advertised, and the large screen behind the stage was scrolling through pictures and soundless videos of past karaoke goers showing off their talents and patrons enjoying a night out.  Delilah let a few of these pictures of happy, goofy, grinning drunks scroll before she turned away and continued her assessment of the place.

On the other side of the stage, she could see the windows and the glass doors that led to the outdoor terrace she had spotted when they drove in.  Behind the stage, Delilah could just see the sign for the washrooms down another dark hallway beside the swinging door that led to the kitchen.  Though she couldn’t see it, judging by the size of the place, on the other side of the bar was most likely more tables, maybe even a full restaurant for people who were there for a full meal.  Tucked away in an improvised nook was the typical cluster of slot machines, with, even now, a few patrons slotting in coins and pulling on levers or pushing on buttons like past-their-prime teenagers playing in a lackluster video game arcade.  These machines, along with a foosball table and a pool table off to the side, were the only entertainment in the place.  Clearly the stage and the people who dared to walk its boards, were the main attraction.

Delilah approached a couple of grizzled men having a beer at one of the small tables nearby.  She could see that Sam was still talking to the bartender.  She pulled out Dean’s photo from the back pocket of her jeans, the paper curving, shaped to her butt cheek.

“Good afternoon, gentlemen.  I’m Detective Nicks, Beulah PD.  Were you here this past Friday?” she asked them firmly, waiting to see if their neutral, guarded looks would dissolve into cooperation.

“That depends,” the man on the right, with the thinning grey hair tied back in a ponytail and a long, equally grey goatee said.

Delilah quirked a small side smile, amused with the movie stereotype answer.  This guy was playing with her.  She would just have to play along too.

“Depends on what, Mr… ?”

“It depends on why you’re askin’ Miss Nicks.”

She smiled at the man warmly, raising her eyebrows and dropping the hardass detective attitude.  Maybe these men would open up more with a little honey.  She let her lips stretch and pull back from her teeth, giving them a radiant smile, she also let her voice chuckle as she continued speaking, conveying amusement.

“I don’t think you have anything to worry about from me.  I’m looking for a man—”

“If a man’s what you want, there’s a fine specimen right here,” chimed in the other man at the table who spread his arms wide making the edge of his shirt ride up and let loose his voluminous, dark hair covered beer gut.

Delilah nodded her head appreciatively with pursed lips holding back a laugh but pushed on with her query without comment. “I’m looking for a man who got into a fight the other day.  Beat another man black and blue.”

She lay Dean’s picture on the table and pushed it towards the two men, but her attention was suddenly drawn away from them as she noticed the tall blond waitress flinch and startle so hard she nearly dropped her tray of dirty beer mugs and drink glasses.  She was wearing a fitted plaid shirt and a pair of jeans, her long hair in a messy bun against the back of her neck, strands escaping from it and falling loosely around her face.  The only indicator that she was an employee was a light canvas apron with pockets slung low on her hips and the tray in her hands.  As the two men at the table blabbered away, tongues loosened, though it turned out they had not been there on Friday at all, Delilah kept her eyes fixed on the girl as she put the drinks tray down on the table in front of her.  She was doing all she could to not look towards Delilah, keeping her eyes cast to the ground and her face either profile or turned away from where she was… but Delilah had already recognized her.

She thanked the two men, who suddenly burst into protest at her leaving as she picked up the photo from the table and headed over to the girl whose face she had seen barely an hour before all over Matt’s living room mantel.  As she approached, the blonde cast about her looking frantic as she wiped her hands on her jeans.  She didn’t take off though.

“Hey,” Delilah greeted her in a friendly way.  If she had been right about the asshole, she knew she was dealing with someone who was used to being pushed and bullied.  She didn’t want to scare her off.  And she knew that without her cooperation, she would not be getting many answers.  “I’m Delilah.”

“Hi,” the blonde said, her eyes looking anywhere but at her.  She suddenly pulled out a rag from her apron pocket and started cleaning off the top of the already wiped table.

Delilah thought about the best way to ask her questions and she noticed Sam turning towards her, a curious frown on his face.  Delilah, barely moving her hand, gestured for him to just wait a little and he stayed put by the bar, watching them.

“You’re Matt’s girlfriend, right?”

“Yes… I mean no…  I mean…  I was,” her voice was shaky, but it had a strength to it that Delilah couldn’t help but admire.  This was a tough cookie still.

“What’s your name?” Delilah asked her gently.

“Annemarie,” she answered, sounding a little more confident, but still wary of her.

Delilah put Dean’s photo down on the table and the girl stopped moving, frozen in the middle of wiping the table again.

“I think you know this man, Annemarie.  Am I wrong?”  For the first time since she had been spotted by Delilah, the blonde looked right at her with her large blue eyes set in her narrow face.  She was struck by how the woman could look both terrified and determined at the same time.  She wondered if she had looked this way herself, faced with Dean’s wrath.  “Do you think we could talk for a minute?” she asked her, determined to get her story.

The waitress glanced quickly towards the bar, Delilah turning to look that way too.  She saw the man Sam had been speaking to frown at them.  She guessed this was Annemarie’s boss.  The pretty blond nodded nonetheless and they settled down at the table.  Annemarie sat with her apron in her hands and she was twisting it, worrying it into a tight coil.  She was back to avoiding Delilah’s eyes.

“So, what can you tell me about this guy?” Delilah tapped Dean’s picture on the table.

Annemarie let go of her apron and picked up the printed photograph, her eyes set in sadness, the corners of her satiny lips pulling down for an instant before she suddenly let out a huff of amusement.  Delilah twitched into a frown, confused by the reaction.

“His name is Dean,” Annemarie told her, handing the photo back across the table, “He showed up here maybe a week ago?  Stuck around for a bit.  Played foosball and sang horrible karaoke mostly.  I’ve never heard anyone get booed at so loudly.  And he drank.  A lot.”

Karaoke?  Foosball?  Somehow that didn’t strike Delilah as typical demon behaviour.  If anything, it just sounded like Dean, she could see him hitting the steering wheel of his Baby enthusiastically to the beat of a drum pass in the song on the radio and bobbing his head.

“We got a few reports of bar brawl incidents involving a man who fits this description,” Delilah said, fishing for more information.

“I wouldn’t call them brawls.  I mean, yeah, he got a little pushy when he was drinking…  and he was drinking, I mean…  I’ve never seen anyone drink as much as he did and still function.  He drank down a fifth of Jack in the space of a few hours and could still walk and talk like he was barely affected.”

Something in the way Annemarie spoke about him pulled at something buried deeply in Delilah’s subconscious.  She ignored the tug, dismissing it for her usual interview jitters when she was in the middle of conning someone.

“So, he sang karaoke and played foosball…  did he spend a lot of time here?  In the last week since he first showed up?” she had to somehow get more clues from her.  How could she get this girl to tell her what she needed to know?  Did she even know where he was now?

“He spent a few days here, basically walked in at opening and walked out at closing.  Darryl had to send him out a couple times.”

“Why?”

“Mostly for being too drunk.  Dean pushed one of our bouncers off the stage when he tried to take the mic away from him.”

“But he came back?”

“Yeah.  Just kept coming back.”

That nagging tug pulled at her again as she looked at Annemarie’s big blue eyes, but she ignored it, pushing on with her questions.  “When’s the last time you saw him?”

“Oh.  I haven’t seen Dean since Friday,” she said, dropping her eyes to the table and setting off a ping on Delilah’s radar.  What was she not telling her?  Time to get real.

“Friday.  You mean since he beat up your boyfriend.”  Annemarie startled and shifted in her chair uncomfortably.  “Why did he beat up Matt?”  Delilah asked, hoping her bluntness would get her some answers.  What had Dean wanted with the arrogant S.O.B. Sam had interviewed earlier could be the key to finding him.  Was it just random violence?  Wrong place, wrong time?  Did he provoke the demon like the bouncer at the strip club had the night before?  The blonde’s answer surprised her though.

“He was trying to defend me.”  When she didn’t continue, Delilah prompted her, trying to get more of the story, hoping it would eventually add up.  “Matt… isn’t… the nicest guy.  He could be really controlling.  And when I didn’t go home on Thursday after my shift, he showed up here.   He yelled at me, pulled me out of the bar.  I tried to get him to calm down, but he was furious.  Just kept yelling at me.  Asking me where I was.  Then Dean walked out.  Came up to us and just started clobbering at Matt like his face was a punching bag at the gym.  I never saw anything like that.”

“So… Dean, beat up Matt… to defend you?” Delilah asked, her brain buzzing in confusion while a little voice whispered to her to stop pushing, she wouldn’t like the answer, but she was there TO ask questions.  She wasn’t going to stop now.

“I know.  It was kinda… wow, you know?  Like.  Why would he even bother?  He had made it very clear that he was just rolling through.  Getting attached to a man like that…  Probably a bad idea.”

“Attached?” Delilah’s head was a loud unthinking buzz.  She couldn’t remember what they were talking about, or the reason for her questions.  It was like someone had switched off the channel and now all she could hear was that high-pitched tone.  She couldn’t make out Annemarie’s words even, it seemed like nothing was going in.  Delilah tried to think through the noise, what had caused it? Why did any of this matter?  The only words that pierced through were, “… slept together, a few times…” and then her words were drowned out again.

It wasn’t until she felt a large hand on her right shoulder that the noise stopped, and she turned her head sharply towards the person connected to that hand.  Sam was looking at her, a worried frown on his face.  “Are you alright, detective?”

Detective? What? And then she turned her head back to look at the blonde and her brain buzzed again.  She had been sleeping with Dean, that’s why Matt was mad at her, that’s why Dean beat Matt to shits.

Annemarie’s focus had shifted to Sam who took over asking questions while Delilah tried to reason with herself.  Of course, Dean slept with her.  Demonized, he went to strip clubs and slept with pretty, willing waitresses.  Hardly odd for an unattached man like him.  And, what did it matter really if he slept around?  That’s what he did.

_You’re nothing but an easy fuck.  That’s all you ever were._

Delilah felt again that leaking stab to her heart and the pinch of pain in her soul.  That’s what he did, he fucked.  She had known this from the start with him.  Hell, she was the same way.  So why did it hurt?

 _I don’t want this!  Yes, you do._ The whispering dream voice came back to her along with the image of the happy, babbling boy, who looked just like his daddy.  Suddenly she felt like throwing up.  The walls were closing in around her like the blood streaked walls in her dream, and it was all going to come crashing down on her any second and she would lose it.  She would go insane.

She stood up from the table abruptly, barely seeing Sam’s hair fanning out as he turned his head sharply to look at her.  Delilah took one last look at Annemarie and her mind twisted her lips into a fang filled mouth as she laughed at her, “Dean fucked me because I’m better than you,” she said, sounding like that dream voice.

Delilah backed away from the terror in her head and stumbled against the table behind her.  Sam stood up, reaching his left arm to steady her.  She waved him off, trying to take a deep breath, but she was unable to breathe through the pain in her chest.  She turned around and made as much of a straight line for the door as the tables and chairs around her would allow.  She could see the light trying to make its way in around the solid metal front door and her head was getting fuzzy.  Faces were popping in and out of her field of vision, all with evil crooked toothed grins, and she didn’t know if they were there or not.  She nearly walked into a chair she hadn’t seen and dodged it at the last second, turning her body and stepping to the side to stop from crashing to the ground.  Her eyes landed on the screen that was projecting the silent videos.  Dean was up there, staring straight ahead of him and moving his head to the muted rhythm of the song he was singing as he brought the mic to his lips, looking bombed out of his mind.  Delilah's stomach twisted and she turned away, managing to keeping the contents from spilling out.

Delilah finally made it to the door and she burst out into the warm, sunlit air.  There were a couple of people making their way towards the bar, her mind unable to register anything beyond that they were human-shaped, and she turned away from them, suddenly afraid that they would ask her what was wrong, and she would explode.  She turned left and headed around towards the back of the building and down the alley that separated it from the buildings around it.  She stopped, finally on her own and leaned up against the cool bricks of the outside wall, hoping it would help her body and mind step away from the edge of combustion.

She tried to focus on her breathing, but suddenly a wave of nausea over took her again and her mouth filled with too much saliva, and everything just came bursting out of her as her stomach convulsed expelling a mash up of gastric acid and half-digested road food.  When there was nothing left to come up, and the spasms in her throat died down, she turned to lean against the wall a safe distance from her puddle of sick and she let gravity take her down to sit on the litter-strewn ground of the alley, wrapping her arms around her knees.

She couldn’t have been there very long before Sam’s black dress shoes stopped in front of her.  He bent his knees and his black jacket clad torso came into view.  She felt so completely embarrassed.  Without a word, though, he handed her a napkin and a water bottle.  Delilah wiped her mouth with the napkin, wadding it up after and tossing it aside, embarrassment turning to anger.  She took a mouthful of water and swished it around, rinsing out the bitter taste that had settled on her tongue before spitting it out to the side.

Her thoughts seemed to have been expelled with her food, because all she could sense in her mind was the dull buzzing leftovers of what she had been feeling.  She decided to let them buzz for a while instead of going back over what was said.  That could wait.  She looked around, suddenly very aware of how dirty the spot she had chosen to sit in was.  There was a nearby dumpster and papers and wrappers and cans were scattered around, mixed with mulched leaves from long ago fall that hadn’t been cleaned away yet by strong enough spring rains.  _You would need a goddamned hurricane to clean this shit up,_ she thought to herself.

Sam’s large hand, long fingers splayed welcomingly, came down in front of her, and she looked up at him hesitantly, worried about how he would see her: sick, destroyed, useless, pathetic…  When he didn’t move or flinch away from her, she reached for his proffered hand and he pulled her to her feet.  She began dusting herself off, but didn’t get far before she found herself crushed against his chest, his right arm caught awkwardly between them, bound in place by his sling.

She wanted to push him away.  She wanted to stay there forever.  She wanted to cry like a little girl and be held together by this giant.  She wanted to hide and not let him see her ever again.  What must he think of her, acting like this?

“When we find him,” he said, his voice soft and low, “I’m gonna kick his worthless ass.”

Delilah felt like she should have laughed.  That Sam thought she was worth Dean getting an ass kicking was funny to her, but instead, his words made her feel sad.  She knew she wasn’t worth that.  She pushed against him, her hands just above his hip bones.

“Don’t worry about it, Sam.  I’ll be fine, once all this is over.  I just need to focus on getting your dumbass of a brother cured.”  She turned back towards where the door and the entrance connected to the parking lot where she had left the car earlier.  “I just hope I didn’t fuck up so badly in there that we still have no leads.”

She walked up to the car and pulled open the driver side door, but stopped when Sam followed her and stood by the hood facing her.  “You didn’t fuck up.  Look.  Why don’t you go back to the motel.  Get some rest.  I’ve got one last place to check out and then I’ll meet you there.”

She frowned, “What do you have to check out?”  What had she missed? Fuck she was stupid!

“There’s a motel nearby.  It’s where Dean’s been staying with Crowley.”

 _Of course, Dean had a fuck pad nearby,_ she thought feeling the nausea again, and taking another swig of water to keep it at bay.  He had holed himself up in there with his sex kitten…  “Wait.  Did you just say Crowley?”

“Yeah, I know.  But she used his name.  Said Crowley and Dean had been sharing a motel room the whole time they were in town.”

“What the fuck?  Demons don’t sleep.  What the hell would they need a motel for?  And a motel?!” Delilah suddenly exclaimed, remembering the posh décor of the penthouse suite in the hotel in Cleveland where she had been held captive.  “What would Crowley be doing staying in a rathole?”

“Yeah, kind of clashes with the Armani suit.  I don’t know.  But I’m gonna go check it out.  You go back to the motel and get some rest.”

Delilah tried to protest, but her arguments were undermined by her own intense desire to stand under the boiling hot water of the shower to wash away the grime that she felt had settled on her with every new thing she learned about Dean: Lisa and Ben, bunking with Crowley, karaoke, strip clubs, beating, stabbing and fucking his way around the back country.

She couldn’t help but wonder, as she turned the key in the ignition, Sam having closed the door for her and stepped away, about his behaviour.  In her mind, a demon’s sole purpose was to corrupt and destroy.  They signed deals and powered witches and caused general mayhem and despair wherever they went, how did Dean fit into that scheme?  He was playing foosball and singing.  Even screwing the waitress seemed odd since the only demon she had ever met with a sex drive had been Crowley, and that was while he was shooting up blood.  So, what was Dean?  Was he really a demon?  She had seen the black eyes, of course, but his behaviour didn’t reflect what she had come to expect from a demon.  It was more like he was a spoiled child, just going around doing what he liked best: sex, music and alcohol.

Her head was starting to hurt from all the confusion and she elected to push it away again as she drove through Beulah, headed back to their motel room where she fully intended to empty the hot water tank onto her body and then maybe pass out for a few hours, if she could be so lucky.


	9. Chapter 9

Ben waited.  And watched.  He felt like he was nearly out of patience, and his eyeballs had dried out a long time ago, his lids scraping sand with every blink.  But still he waited.  Still he watched.

He watched the parking lot, the McDonald’s across the road, the leaf in the tree hanging on by a tiny section of stem and blowing in the gentle breeze, the kids playing in the park a little further down from the McD’s, the pigeon taking a shit onto a black car under the lamp post it was perched on.

He listened to the radio for a while, but all he could find were stations playing the latest pop hits and that kind of music always put him on edge, so he turned it off.

He jerked off watching the couple having sex in the first floor room in the middle of the morning and who hadn’t bothered closing the curtains.

He stared at the dark grey felt on the ceiling of the car.

When an old, beater of a car pulled into the vacant lot at the end of the motel parking area and popped their hood, a cloud of smoke erupting from it in a puff, he watched as they scrambled around.

“Check the gaskets, there’s probably a leak,” he said out loud to the empty interior of the car.

He frowned, a little perplexed, wondering why he knew that but accepting as always that understanding cars just came to him naturally.  Like driving this stick shift he had taken from Sam.  In fact, he couldn’t understand that people didn’t get this stuff, it was so instinctive.

_“Alright, bud.  How’s the oil looking?”_

_“Um, it’s looking okay, I guess.  Maybe a bit yucky?”_

_“Define yucky.  Is it chunky? Dark? Looking like your mother’s gravy? Don’t tell her I said that.”_

_“Maybe a little dark.  Kinda looks like molasses?”_

_“Well, sounds like we’re due for an oil change then.”_

The flash was sudden, there and gone again, and it left Ben with that feeling that something was very wrong.  Was that from a movie?  A dream?  He tried to hang onto it, but it was gone like it had just disappeared from his mind, or like it had never been there to start with.  Or maybe it had gone back to hiding behind that door.

Ben rubbed at his forehead, a headache forming there as his stomach started to grumble and complain about the lack of food.  He glanced again at the McDonald’s and his stomach gave a louder groan and his mouth flooded with saliva.  When was the last time he ate? He couldn’t even remember.  Had he eaten the day before?

He glanced at the lifeless motel and the cars parked there: the black Mazda 3 and the rust red Civic that looked like it had been sitting there forever.  No silver Elantra though.  He really should continue to wait for them to come back.  They would come back.  They had to!  His stomach gave another loud and painful gurgle.

A quick run across the street to the McD’s would be okay, he reasoned.  He could keep an eye on the motel the time he was there and be back before anything else happened for sure.

Getting a rush of excitement at the prospect of food in his belly, Ben pulled the keys out of the ignition and got out of the car.  As he slammed the door shut, he couldn’t stop his body from stretching, his arms reaching high up as his spine cracked and popped from his pelvis to his neck.  It felt almost as good as jerking off, he thought as his body relaxed back to normal and left him all tingly.  He looked around one last time, and turned his feet towards the street, ready to cross to where the food was.  He could already smell the meat cooking and the oil from the fries on the air.  With long purposeful strides he made his way to the restaurant, dodging and weaving around the few cars that were making their way up and down the four-lane boulevard.

The inside of the fast-food joint was cool, the air conditioning already going full blast though the day was barely warming.  The temperature difference caressed Ben’s skin and covered his bare arms in gooseflesh.  He joined the short line of people staring up at the menu board like strange zombie moths attracted to the lit panels and quickly glanced around scoping out the potentials.

The woman in line ahead of him would be perfect; she was juggling a couple rowdy kids running around in front of her and a toddler sitting on her voluminous hip.  She called out the kids’ names repeatedly sounding desperate and frustrated, while the other patrons made their menu choices, ignoring the disruption like she was a personal embarrassment to them.  _People are assholes_ , Ben thought as he peaked inside her woven straw purse.  He loved these kinds of bags, they always just hung right open. _You’d be amazed_ , he thought as though speaking to someone else as he quickly reached inside, _at the number of people who just let their wallets and money sit right on top of the stuff in there_.  He pulled out the large rectangular wallet with a faded Snoopy sitting on his red doghouse and quickly opened it, looking for a few bills to finance his lunch.

He saw a couple twenties and snagged them quickly before putting the wallet back in her purse, unseen by the zombies.  As the overworked, exhausted mom stepped up to the counter to order, Ben noticed one of the kids break free and head out to the enclosed play park.  With a chuckle, he left the line and went to stand by the play area door, ready to catch the kid as he ran past.

Timing could not have been more perfect as the green t-shirt clad kid zoomed around the play structure and by the door where Ben was standing right when the woman at the counter noticed his absence.  He grabbed the kid and lifted him in the air, as a panicked “Jamyan!” sounded from her lips.  Jamyan kicked and hollered ineffectually as Ben lugged him back to the counter and his relieved mother.

“I think this belongs to you,” he said, as he put the raving kid down next to his sister who was hiding behind her mother and peeking at him.

“Jamyan Josebah King!  How many times have I told you? You do not run off!”  Ben smirked as he turned to return to the back of the line, but the woman called out to him.  “Thank you,” she said to him.

He turned around and tipped his head, “It’s no problem, ma’am,” he said graciously.

“Please, let me buy you lunch.”

“No, that’s very kind of you, but it’s quite alright.  I’m just glad I could help,” _and you’re already buying me lunch you dumb broad_ , he added to himself.

“Really.  I insist, you look like you could use a good meal.”

Ben yielded, trying to keep his amused grin to himself and passing it off as a smile of gratitude.  He ordered a Big Mac trio with a large fry and soft drink which she tacked onto her own order of two Happy Meals and a chicken nugget trio.  Ben tried again to hide his growing amusement as she pulled out her wallet and went straight for the credit card, not even noticing the missing bills from the side compartment.

Things only got awkward when she started asking him about himself.  He quickly slapped together a lie about being on a road trip to go see his uncle who lived in Montana, but when she pressed him for more details he simple shut his mouth and glared at her with his hardened Detroit streets stare.  She fell quiet, her kids starting to fuss again and pulling at her attention, now that the novelty of the tall strange boy had worn off.  When the food arrived, he grabbed his paper bag and rolled down the edge into a handle thanking her once more.  She suddenly reached for his free hand and gripped it with a strength he hadn’t thought the short round woman possessed.

“God keep you safe on your travels,” she said, looking him straight in the eyes with an intensity that unnerved him.  All he could do was nod and pull his hand free of her grasp before heading straight out towards the door that would let him back outside and away from this religious nutbag.

“Jesus fucking H Christ,” he said vehemently, trying to rid himself of the feeling crawling on his skin.  The door swung shut behind him and he trotted to the edge of the sidewalk lining the boulevard.  He looked across to the parking lot, seeing the black Maxima where he had left it.  He quickly glanced at the other cars: shit Civic, pigeon poop Mazda, broken down beater.  Nothing was out of place, and no silver Elantra.  Ben thought about sitting in that damn car again and his butt muscles twitched in disgust.  The sun was shining, and the afternoon was getting warm, that car was going to become an oven once it was out of the shade.  He cast around for an alternative and found that there was a wooden picnic table off to the side and partly concealed by a cedar hedge looking a little sparse.

“Awesome,” he said to himself as he glanced at the traffic and crossed over to the table.  He figured that if they drove by on the street, they wouldn’t notice some kid sitting and eating at the table, and if they pulled up into the motel parking he would spot them through the cedar branches without being seen.  Satisfied that he could continue his stake out, he pulled his warm food from the grease stained paper bag and dug in, relishing his free meal with guiltless gusto.

The burger was eaten and gone before Ben knew it, though, leaving the familiar lingering chemical taste of fast food and a strange combination of feeling full and still hungry all at once.  He sucked on his soda, hoping it would help and nibbled away at the fries.  Soon they were dead and gone too and he stared longingly back over his shoulder at the fast food restaurant.

“Fast to make, fast to eat and fast to need more…  Stupid fucking food,” he mused out loud, wishing his belly didn’t feel so empty all the time.  When was the last time that he actually felt full?  Visions of his mother’s cooking came floating back to him, taste buds a-buzz and mouth watering.  His mom hadn’t been the best cook in the world, her specialty being a mac and cheese beef casserole whose main ingredient was Campbell’s tomato soup, but he was always full after her meals.  He glanced down at himself.  Wiry, he thought, though skinny might be what most people would call him: all skin and bones, but whatever would be soft had been made hard by the need to be strong and survive.  He remembered the way he looked before – a short, squishy kid who read comic books and listened to rock.  He secretly wished he hadn’t had to grow up, evolve into whatever he was now, in order to survive in the shittiness his life had become in the past few years.

His gurgling stomach became a boiling rage again as his thoughts were brought back to the circumstances that led him here, and, inevitably, to the sight of his mother: spread, torn up and bloody on the motel bed; a residual image on his retinas that he simply could not blink away.  He jammed the palms of his hands on his eyes until all he could see was red, forcing the memory and the vision to retreat to a safe distance.  Why couldn’t that shit be locked away in his brain and inaccessible?  Why did he have to constantly see her that way?  Why did every memory of her, happy or otherwise, have to end with that gory mess?

Ben was suddenly snapped out of his musings as he spotted movement through the sparse cedar branches.  He ducked his head to follow the car’s arrival as it moved from one empty patch of green to another.  As it finally came to a stop, parked off to the side of the motel’s main doors, Ben recognized the silver Elantra he had been waiting for and felt that crawling excitement, his skin feeling like it was covered in marching, scrambling ants and his scalp tingled like his hair was standing on end.  He had been right!  He had waited around and his target had finally walked back into his sights.

He scooted forward off the picnic table bench as the driver got out of the car.  Long brown hair was all he could see for a moment as the sun caught the gold strands lost in the darker rich brown.  It hung loosely down the woman’s back, curling into loose corkscrews at the ends and swayed in the breeze as she turned her head and closed the driver’s door.  Delilah.  Ben’s face wrinkled in equal parts anger and annoyance when he thought again about how that little scrap of a person had knocked him on his ass.  His eyes followed her all the way to the motel door before he realized that she was on her own.  Where had Sam disappeared to?

Ben looked around himself frantically, suddenly convinced that they had used that cunt as a diversion while Sam snuck up on him from behind.  He barely had the chance to register anything but blurred lines and coloured splotches before whipping his head around to look to his right, and then again to his left, nearly falling off the table from the whiplash.  To a casual observer, he probably looked like he was bad tripping on acid or crack, he realized, and he tried to calm down.  Obviously, he didn’t have Sam Winchester crawling up his ass right at the moment.  He carefully scanned his environment in a slow 360: McDonald’s, kids’ park, shopping center, Gas N Sip station, some brick and glass official looking building, motel parking, cedar hedge.  Other than the people going about their lives at the different businesses and restaurants, there was no one.  No Sam Winchester.

Had they split up?  Why would Sam not have come back with her to the motel?  He suddenly became very worried that while she was here, and he was there hiding in the shrubs, Sam was out meeting with Dean.  They were probably having a good laugh at him, watching the girl while they were off doing whatever they were doing.  Fuck.  Maybe Sam had had a hand in his mother’s death too!  And the fuckers were laughing at him while he wasted his goddamned time chasing that stupid bitch.

His anger was getting the better of him, he knew, making him see things where there was nothing.  It had happened to him at the last home he had been in before he took off.  He had lashed out at the kids there, determined they had been stealing his stuff, what little he had.  The whole thing had ended with his blade pointed at a crying nine-year-old.  The woman had called the cops and off he’d been sent to a boys’ home for juvenile delinquents in Detroit…  where shit got beyond real, before he took off.  He was not going to go back there.

Ben’s stomach gave another gut drilling gurgle, pushing aside his paranoid musings and bringing him back to the moment.  He stared at the crumpled-up McDonald’s bag longingly and thought about that woman’s money lining his own flimsy, battered wallet.  He decided that he should get more food.  As long as the bitch’s car stayed where it was, he knew they would eventually come back, and then he would let them lead him straight to Dean.

He briefly considered going back to the McDonald’s, but his full-empty belly was telling him to get real.  He glanced around again and looked at the family eatery a block down the road and thought about a platter of pasta or a real burger, but those places were always more expensive than they were worth.

The Gas N Sip station caught his attention again, and he frowned.  Nothing to eat there – talk about over priced.  He kept staring at it though, watching some average dark-haired Joe holding the door open for some average blonde chick heading out, and he wondered why this was so fascinating.  Then it hit him.  Dean had been in a Gas N Sip in Wisconsin.  He had killed a man there.  If his brother and that crazy chick Delilah were hanging around here, then maybe Dean was nearby too.  Maybe he had been in a Gas N Sip here… Fuck!  What if he had been to this one?

Ben’s brain felt like it had been dowsed in fuel and set on fire.  He scrambled off the picnic table bench and barely looked at the traffic, or the honking car, as he rushed across the street in long purposeful strides.  He was focused on his goal, convinced that he was going to open that door and Dean would be standing right there.  He put his hand in his pocket and wrapped his fingers around his folded blade.  He squeezed it as he imagined plunging the cold metal into the man who had killed his mother.  The man who had robbed him of his chance at a normal life.  He was fuming as he yanked open the convenience store door, the bell at the top of the frame ringing loudly and startling him.

He looked around at the cashier – the dirty-blonde girl barely glanced back at him before going back to the “Seventeen” magazine she was reading avidly, even though she had to be in her twenties at least.  His eyes drifted down to her chest almost reflexively and he was sorely disappointed by the lack of visible cleavage beneath the blue uniform vest she was wearing over a plain grey t-shirt.  He scanned the convenience store for his potential target, his mind refusing to let go of the idea that he could be there.  There was a man standing in front of the beer fridge, gut showing from under the edge of his Budweiser t-shirt, head stuck tightly in a black baseball cap.  A soft, dumpy looking woman holding a baby in a dark blue carrier was standing in front of the candy aisle as though trying to decide between Milkduds and M&Ms.  A couple of middle school kids playing hooky were having fun emptying the Slurpy machine into extra large clear plastic cups and mixing the flavours into a multi-coloured goop that was probably going to be inedible.  They were laughing and chortling like they were the first to do such stupid shit.  Ben thought they were being so childish.  He also yearned to be one of them.  He was momentarily broadsided by a wave of nostalgia… his mother and him going out for pizza and ice cream cones.

_“Can I get an espresso flavoured cone, mom?”_

_“I don’t think you should be eating caffeine, Ben.”_

_“Oreo then?  What flavour are you gonna get, Dean?”_

_“I don’t know yet.  This Nerds concoction’s got me curious.”_

_Ben filled with laughter, “Don’t you want, like a grown up flavour?”_

_“Where’s the fun in that?  Besides, I think your mom is plenty grown up for both of us.”_

_“I heard that, smartass.”_

_“Seriously, hun…  Praline.  That’s like an old person ice cream.”_

_“I happen to like it.”_

There and gone again in a flash, and Ben struggled to hold onto it.  Dean?  Had Dean been there?  With them?  Or were those memories just blending with his current rage?  Ben jammed his palms against his forehead and groaned, trying hard to remember.  He was so close!  He could feel that barrier in his head bending and stretching like it was made of rubber as opposed to its usual steel.  He scrambled at it, trying to draw out that memory like he was pulling an elf out of the cupboard by its ankle.

_“C’m’ere, Lis.  I’ll give you some flavour.”_

_Dean pulled his mom against him and Ben turned away quick before he had to watch them exchanging saliva.  “Gross guys!  Can we, like, stop it with the emotional scarring?”_

_He heard his mom’s quiet, subtle laughter and when he turned to look at her, she was smiling broadly, held tightly in Dean’s arms who kissed her forehead before stepping away.  Ben could never get enough of seeing her happy.  Dean made her that happy.  He was glad he had come to stay._

Ben tugged harder, what the hell was this?  He couldn’t remember any of this!  It was like watching a half-remembered movie that someone else had seen.

“Hey kid!” the nasal voice of the blonde cashier broke through, “You okay?  Do you need help, or something?”

And just like that, the door slammed shut again in his head, cutting off any further access to whatever that had been.  He tried to picture his mother’s smile again, as it swam and wavered in his head.  She had been so happy then, why couldn’t he remember any of it?  Her smile faded quickly as the bright sunlight faded to darkest tones of night with a lamp barely casting a glow as he pushed open the motel door, this memory clear as a freshly cleaned window.  He tried to banish it before he could see what he knew he didn’t want to see again: the blood, the mess, the vacant look on his mom’s face, her brown eyes open and staring like a demented fish.

A hand touched his shoulder and he reacted, his arm shooting out on its own, his fist tightly closed at the end of it as he grabbed the girl’s clavicle with his other hand, to hold her in place.  He stopped just in time, lowering his fist and letting her go before she could scream for help and attract unwanted attention his way.  Her eyes were wide and staring and she looked absolutely terrified.

“I’m so sorry,” Ben hurried to say, trying hard to salvage the situation.  The last thing he needed was for her to call the cops on him.

“It’s alright,” she said slowly, taking a step back towards the safety of her spot behind her counter, undoubtedly regretting her decision to approach him in the first place.

Ben felt like shit.  He had probably looked completely spaced out standing there like the dumb fucking spaz-tastic idiot he was.  He glanced around again quickly, but found that the whole thing must have flown under the radar of the Gas N Sip patrons, because they were still going about their business; except the mother who had moved on to a different aisle, eyeing the toilet paper displayed in the specials.  The beer belly had left the store completely.  The regular Joe he had spotted from the other side of the street came out from the back, his short brown hair cropped close on the sides and a little longer on top.  Ben couldn’t see his face, but it was like looking at his mother’s murderer from that photo.  Ben’s heart rate increased, and he nearly took a step towards the guy, going so far as pulling out his folded knife, before the man turned his head and he finally got a good look at him.

It was not him.  Ben’s breathing was laboured as his body took an extra minute to understand what his brain was telling him, half-determined to beat the shit out of this random stranger anyways just for looking sort of like the man he was looking for.

Ben looked at the cashier again.  She had managed to get back to her high stool behind the counter and was looking at him warily, like he was maybe about to pull a gun on her.  He looked her way, wishing he knew the magic words to make her feel better, but all he ever was around girls was awkward.  Or angry.  And he was already on edge as it was.  He approached the counter anyways, slipping the knife back into his pocket unnoticed, determined to at least try and find out if she had seen Dean.  He reached into his jacket before he remembered that he had dropped the picture back in that stupid barn in Wisconsin.

“Fuck,” he said under his breath.  The girl behind the counter flinched and he rubbed his eyes with his right hand. “Sorry.  Look.  I’m not a psycho, okay?”

“Sure,” she answered, looking far from believing him.

“I’m looking for someone,” he pushed on, moving up to stand where customers normally stand to pay for their purchases.  “He’s maybe my height, but wider? Like,” Ben held out his hands on either side of his shoulders trying to imagine what the man was like compared to him, just based on the way he looked standing next to his mother.  “Brown hair.  Like, rugged maybe?”

“I don’t know.  I see a lot of people,” she answered.

“I don’t think he’d be a regular.  Maybe he’d come in here like once or twice?  Since last week?”  Ben was gaining a whole new level of respect for Sam pretending to be FBI in the last Gas N Sip.

“Like I said, I see a lot of people.  If you’re not gonna buy anything, you have to go.”

“Seriously, I need to find him!  His name is Dean.  Dean Winchester,” the girl was shaking her head at him, looking scared, “Jesus Fuck!” he yelled, slamming his palm against the counter, making her flinch again.  “How fucking dumb are you?  Winchester!  Like the rifle!”

“If you don’t leave now, I’m going to call the cops.”

Ben stopped himself, taking a step away and holding his hands up to his shoulders palms out.  “Fine.  I’m leaving.  Chill out, fuck.”

He turned back towards the door and shoved it open angrily as he walked back out into the warm late afternoon air, the anger rushing through his veins and invading his entire body feeling like it was going to shake free and burst out.

“What could you possibly want with Dean Winchester?”

Ben stopped in his tracks, a strange discomfort twisting his stomach as he turned his head to look at the short man standing off to the side and staring at him calculatingly.  The man was dressed all in black, a fancy suit under a black overcoat that seemed out of season for the warm air.  A strange odor reached Ben’s nose, and he wondered if a sewer had backed up.

“That’s my business,” Ben cautiously told the man who narrowed his eyes at him, a smirk permanently hanging on his lips.  He had his hands in his coat pockets and he took a step, not so much forward as around, like he was getting ready to pace.

“Is it now?” The man’s already low voice seemed to pitch down with a mild grumble that was both threatening and familiar.

“How do you know Dean?”  Ben asked warily.

“I just do.  Or maybe I don’t.  That’s my business, you see.  The question is, how do you know him?  Who could you possibly be?  Victim?  Love child?  Spurned lover?  Creepy crawley?”

Ben took a small step back, the twist in his gut more pronounced as something nudged at him again.  That voice sounded familiar somehow.

“Come now.  Let’s start with a name.”

“No.  I have to go now,” Ben said, taking another step back that made him feel like he was back to being a pudgy ten-year-old.

“Nonsense.  You can go, when I’m done with you.”

A slick, oily smile spread on the man’s bearded face and Ben didn’t have time to wonder why before he was doubled over, a pain in his gut so excruciating he could barely breathe.  It felt like someone had simultaneously stabbed, punched and gutted him.  He couldn’t control his thoughts, his body, none of it and suddenly he saw, swimming in front of his eyes, blinded by the pain, an image of the same man, in the same black coat, only without the short beard.

_The white door shattered along with the chair he had jammed up under the handle._

_He watched, perched on his dresser as the black clad man stepped into the room like everything he saw was his to take or break as he saw fit._

_“What do you want with us?” his mom asked, yelling at the black clad man._

_“You? Nothing.  You’re just a means to an end.  So, you two can just sit pretty while I get done, what I need to get done, and everyone walks away from this satisfied.”_

 

_“Brat’s not going anywhere,” his mom said in a voice he had never heard come from her before.  He could feel the cold metal of the blade against his throat.  He stared at Dean, confused and internally pleading him to help them but he couldn’t get a word out._

_“Don’t listen to her, Ben.  That’s not your mom.”_

_“I was just gonna tell him you’re his real daddy!”_

 

“Ben!  Small world.  How long’s it been?  How’s your mom?” the black coated man suddenly sounded cheerful and Ben crashed back to the moment as the pain in his gut disappeared, leaving behind just that unsettled feeling.  He wasn’t aware of having fallen to his knees, yet there he was on the pavement, pulling himself up with a nearby cement barrier.  He also wasn’t aware that he had said anything, yet somehow the man knew his name now.

“Who are you?” Ben spit at him, equal parts fear and anger.

“Who am I?  Really?  I’m not used to being forgotten… unless,” he man narrowed his eyes and cocked his head sideways, looking at him without drawing nearer.  “Interesting.  Looks to me like you’ve been touched by an angel.”

“What?” he yelled, the statement generating more confusion than understanding.

“Trapped away in your noggin’, that’s a cruel little angel trick.  Leave it to Dean to pull that kind of woolly stunt.”

“What are you talking about?!” Ben yelled, pulling his blade from his pocket and flipping it open.  He gripped the handle tightly in his quickly slicking hand and pointed the blade at the man.  He raised his eyebrows, looking amused.

“Cute.  But you could be useful.  Try not to get yourself killed.”

Ben watched him raise his hand and snap his fingers and suddenly he was alone in the bright, sunny parking lot.  He turned around holding the knife in front of him, frantically trying to see where the man had gone.  He turned around again, feeling like his heart was going to blow out of his chest, and turned again.  Everywhere he looked he could see nothing, nothing but street and cars and parking lot.  The bell on the door behind him chimed and he turned around quickly again, holding his knife out and pointing it at the woman walking out of the Gas N Sip holding her baby in its carrier.  She stopped dead in her tracks and stared at him terrified before he flipped the blade shut again and took off running.

_“Just kidding.  Who knows who your real dad is, kid.  Your mom’s a slut.”_

The voice, both his mom’s and cold and alien all at once, bounced around his head.

_“Was just gonna tell him you’re his real daddy!”_

Ben crossed the street and tripped on the curb, his body sprawling on the grass, knocking the air out of his lungs again.

_“She’s begging me to kill you.  She says you hold her back.”_

Ben slammed his hands over his ears, dropping the knife to the ground, and screamed, trying to cover the sound of that thing’s voice in his head.

_“That’s not your mom, Ben.” A DEMON, whispered his mind as loud as a whistle.  “She’s lying,” came another voice, Dean’s voice.  He wanted desperately to believe him, to believe that the thing speaking through his mom’s mouth and vocal chords was not her, couldn’t be her.  A DEMON, his mind whispered again._

From across the street, through his tear-filled eyes, he could see the cashier and the lady with the baby pointing at him frantically.  The girl had a phone to her ear and he knew that any second, the cops would show up.  He had to get back to the motel, and the car.  Maybe drive the hell away from this place.  He wanted to go home so badly.  Wanted all of this to be nothing more than a bad dream he was going to wake up from any minute with his mom’s hand on his forehead.  He’d give anything in the world to hug her again, to have her hold him and comfort him.

The tears were streaming down his face now, and he didn’t care if anyone saw them, he had to get away.  He scrambled to his feet, picking up the folded blade when his hand closed on top of it, and stumbled along the grassy verge, headed for the motel where the car was parked.  If he could just get back to the car, everything would be fine.  Get back to the car.  Get to the car!

The world was a blur around him and he could just make out the black shape of the Maxima.  He yanked open the driver’s door and threw himself into the seat, the voices swirling in his head, attacking him with their barbs and acid laced words.  And louder than all was that man’s accented voice. _Ben!  Small world.  How’s your mom?_

She’s dead.  She’s dead.  She’s dead.

He beat his hands on the steering wheel, tore at his hair and gnawed the inside of his cheek to the blood while the tears refused to stop flowing.

What was happening to him?  He had to get away.

Then, out of the waterfall warped vision of his eyes, he saw the taxi pull up to the motel and turn the passenger side towards the door.  Suddenly, remembering why he was there, he swallowed his fear and tears and confusion, and he held his breath, scooting down until his knees were jammed under the dashboard and his head was barely above the edge of the window.  The tall man in the sling got out of the car and flipped his hair out of his face reflexively before leaning back in to grab a bag.  He closed the door, then turned around and strolled into the building.

The anger swelled inside Ben again as he remembered his purpose, the voices dying down and retreating to their vault and leaving him alone with the reason he was there.

Find and kill Dean Winchester.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry I had to torture Ben so badly... but I really fucking hated the whole Cole storyline... Can never bring myself to care about some random person whose father was killed by Dean because he was a monster. So I dredged up someone I feel Dean would really react to... and throw a few things in Delilah's face too.
> 
> Anyways... hope you like it so far.


	10. Chapter 10

Delilah woke up gasping for breath, her heart racing under her ribs.  She could still feel the deadweight of the boy on her hip, the soft and slightly sticky feel of his lips on her cheek, the warmth of his forehead resting against her neck, and the sound of his tired whisper: _I love you mommy_.  The dream had felt so real, so much more like a memory than a dream, and it continued to disorient her.  If she closed her eyes, she could still smell him, the smell of a little boy who had been playing in a freshly mowed yard.  Her little boy.  Hers and Dean’s.

She swung her legs over the edge of the lumpy mattress and dropped her head in her hands, resting her elbows on her knees.  She kept her eyes open though they prickled from the contact with the air in the room.  Regardless, the dream still gripped her mind tightly and she saw again the image of the happy home life, Dean looking so relaxed and content, _Want me to take him?_  that crooked little smile, so genuine, his eyes so full of love…  hatred.  Disgust.  _You mean nothing to me.  You’re nothing but an easy fuck,_ her memories cut in, not quite wiping out that tenderness, the sweetness of his crinkled eyes as he looked at their son, as he looked at her.  The two versions of Dean overlapped and flickered switching between tenderness and disgust, love and disdain once more.

“Stop it!  God fucking damn it!  Stop!  Please,” Delilah moaned desperately in the empty motel room where she had fallen asleep on top of the covers after Sam had sent her away from the bar.  Who or what she was talking to though, even she couldn’t tell.  Part of her couldn’t help but hope that this was all another twisted game brought on by contact with a cursed object… like that mirror.  But she knew that this time, she had only her own real memories to blame, and therefore she was the only one who could break their curse.

She ran her hands through her hair, scraping her nails on her scalp as though trying to dig out the evil thoughts from her psyche…  Though which of the images she wanted most to disappear, she didn’t know anymore.  She both clung to and hated the dream for showing her something that she had never thought was possible.  Something she hadn’t even known she wanted.  Just like she hated Dean for all that he had said and done to her over the past year, and yet…

_I love you, Dean._

_Are you sure?_

Delilah felt the tears running down her cheeks and tried to wipe them away, but soon they were rushing down like a waterfall and she found herself sobbing and gasping as she fought back the emotions surging up through her throat.  She was shaking from her efforts, trying to swallow down the lump, bobbing her head afraid of opening her mouth, holding her trembling breath, loath of the sound her tortured soul would make if she let it out.  She gasped unable to hold it back fighting against herself to take a breath and the sobs finally broke free, shattering her as they went.

Sitting on the edge of this old mattress, in a run-down motel, far from anything she could even begin to consider home, Delilah cried.  She wrapped her arms around herself, still obstinately fighting the losing battle with herself as she struggled to take a breath deep enough to settle the sobs.  She moaned between the painful gasps, a keening, wounded animal sound she couldn’t bring herself to acknowledge was coming from her as she rocked back and forth.

_I love you, Dean._

God.  She had been so fucking stupid.  She had let herself fall for a con man, a player.  She had let herself become emotionally attached to a man who had used her, and abused her.  Oh god.  She had fallen in love with someone just like her father.

That last thought sobered her up like a slap to the face and the tears suddenly stopped as she looked straight ahead of her, staring at the awful seventies wallpaper in complete shock.  It’s not like the idea was particularly new to her, she had made the link before between some of Dean’s behaviour and her father’s, but she had always told herself that it was the Mark making him act that way.  She knew better now.  All her adult life she had run away from getting involved with the men she had brought to her bed, too afraid of the potential hold and control they could have on her through her emotions.  She had sent packing men who had wanted only to be with her in a loving fulfilling relationship, and what had she done?  She had turned around and let herself fall in love with a man who had hit her, and manipulated her, played her heart like a fragile harp, only to break the strings and kick her to the curb.

“Fuck him,” she said angrily, spitting the words out as she wiped the drying tear tracks from her face.  “He can go straight to Hell.”

An image of Dean’s face swam up once more, and he looked sad, and remorseful for a moment before his eyes turned beetle black and glinted with malice, his downturned lips looking more like a sneer than an expression of regret.  A tortured scream let loose inside her head and for a moment, she was almost convinced that another banshee had found her, but even she could recognize the sound of her soul in agony.  How many times had that scream resounded in her head as she had been petted and pawed at, beaten and raped, used up and thrown away.

Delilah stood up suddenly and looked around the room, searching for something that would slam the brakes on the downward spiral, that would make her screaming mind stop.  She walked over to the mini fridge nestled under what passed as a breakfast counter in the tiny motel room, the thing not big enough to accommodate much more than a shitty looking four-cup coffee maker and a couple chipped cups that could have come from any dollar store.  She yanked the fridge door open and foraged for the only thing within reach that she knew could quiet her troubled thoughts, or at least numb them for a while.  She grabbed the first of the one-point-seven-ounce bottles, hardly caring what the contents were as long as they seared her throat and stupefied her brain.  The first bottle was gone in barely a swallow, and she reached inside again to consume another.  By the time the scream had been dulled to a low constant thrum, the bottles were all empty, their drained carcasses strewn on the ground around where she was suddenly kneeling, the throb in her joints telling her that her journey to the floor had not been a graceful one.

She closed her eyes, finding nothing was waiting for her but the inside of her eyelids and she breathed a sigh of relief.  Too soon though, the nothing behind her closed eyelids spun around and she opened them again feeling light headed.  She sat back, her ass connecting with the ground and her back with the closest bed’s mattress.  She perceived more than felt the metal bed frame connect with her spine with a dull thump.  _One more bruise…_ The room spun around her again and she closed her eyes.  The floor tilted, and her eyes startled open again.

She focused on slowly breathing in and out, the dizziness accompanied by some mild nausea she was determined to contain.  “You really outdid yourself this time Dee.  Fuck,” she whispered under her breath.  By the time she heard the key in the motel door lock, she was in control enough to grab the evidence of her weakness and scurry into the cramped bathroom cradling the tiny bottles in her arms.  She dumped them in the garbage bin next to the sink and turned the shower on just as she heard Sam’s footfalls in the entrance.  Feeling relieved that she had successfully avoided a confrontation and a major guilt trip from Sam, she leaned her head against the cool tiles between the shower stall and the door and tried to banish the dizziness long enough to figure out what she was doing.

Her mind running free of her usual tight control, it suddenly called up a memory and she was pitched head first into remembering the feel of Dean pressing his naked body against hers in an equally cramped and grimy motel bathroom.  Her breathing accelerated as she felt him again in that moment: the way he had ground his hips against her slowly, his hard, swollen cock pressing into her skin.  _Do you have any idea, how bad I want you, right now?_

Her addled body responded to the erotic memory with a throb in her lower regions, and Delilah suddenly found herself aroused and trying her best to suppress a moan.  The feel of Dean’s body against hers, his hands gripping her tightly as their mouths pressed together over and over was too much for her, she sighed shakily, her eyes closed tightly and she found herself giving in to the pleasure evoked by the long ago memory, before Dean had gotten the Mark on his arm, when the most complicated thing they had had to deal with was ending a ghost or a vampire.

“Delilah?” Sam’s voice and a quick knock on the door startled her out of her self-indulgence and she moved away from the wall before answering.

“Yeah?”

“Just checking you’re doing okay,” his voice through the door said.

“Um, yeah,” Delilah answered, looking around at where she had rushed to hide from him.  She looked at the water falling to the base of the shower tub.  “I’m just finishing up my shower,” she added, hoping Sam hadn’t caught the slight slurring of her words.  “I’ll be right out.”

“Alright.  Take your time.”

She didn’t answer.  Instead she undressed quickly and grabbed her toiletries bag from where she had left it that morning on the back of the sink.  She pulled out an elastic and quickly piled her long hair on her head and tied it in a sloppy bun.  She stepped beyond the thin curtain keeping the water inside the narrow tub.  As soon as the hot water touched her, it was like a relieved sigh was escaping through her every pore and she relaxed into the water, just standing there, letting the hot liquid work her tired muscles like magic fingers.  It turned cold quickly though and too soon she had to step back out into the cold bathroom.

Feeling grounded again, the room steady once more, she wrapped a motel towel around herself and dried off her skin quickly before tucking one corner under the edge tightly.  She picked up her clothes from the floor and walked out into the room.  Sam had changed out of his FBI suit and was sitting on the end of his bed, his bare feet planted on the ground.  He had put on his jogging pants but hadn’t put a shirt on yet.  Delilah found herself strangely hypnotized as she stood there watching him slowly move his injured shoulder back and forth, his left arm flexing as it controlled the movement.  She was struck, once again, by the sheer size of him; he looked like he was just too big for the bed, the room, everything – the wrong sized Ken doll for the playhouse.  The long brown hair falling in his face and the pensive hazel eyes may give him a slightly boyish look, but when he was like this, bare chested and sculpted muscles on display, it was impossible to deny that he was a man… and a glorious specimen at that.  Delilah’s lower abdomen twisted again, her sex throbbing distractingly and from a drunken, stupefied part of her mind, came the rock hard certainty that fucking Sam Winchester sounded like a damn good idea.  She felt instantly uneasy and was suddenly very aware that she was standing barely a few feet away from him in nothing but a towel… oh, how easy it would be to just drop it to the ground, walk over to the bed and mount him.

By the time common sense joined the party, she was imagining the feel of his silky hair between her fingers and of his enormous hands on her body.

Delilah turned away from him, ashamed of her self-indulging mind; first the alcohol, and now the lust…. She could feel her self-control slipping and with it the last of the illusion she had created that she was a sane and balanced person.  Still, it was no reason to drag Sam down with her.  He deserved much more than to be his brother’s broken ex-girlfriend’s rebound guy.

She grabbed her duffel from the ground and put it up on the bed, keeping a firm hold on her towel, scared suddenly of accidentally doing what her damaged brain had conjured, and she had then dismissed.  Her foraging brought up a pair of black cotton boy briefs, and she slipped them on under her towel.  A quick inspection of her skinny jeans revealed that they were covered in dirt and debris from the alley earlier and she dropped them to the ground before going back to looking through her bag.  She pulled out her torn back up hunting jeans and decided that the battle tears looked like they were meant to be there and would do for an evening at the bar.  She shimmied them on and quickly completed her outfit with a cropped, long sleeved black top that showed off her trimmed abdomen.  She smoothed her hands over her exposed lower back, trying to feel for the scratches she knew were still healing and decided they were mostly hidden.

“Did you find anything at that motel?” she asked Sam as she sat on the end of her own bed, opening the discussion warily, hoping she would be able to hang on to her composure.

Sam turned to look at her, shaking the stray hair out of his face and Delilah watched, hypnotized, as the feather light strands fell back into place.  “Nothing we can use,” he said, standing up gracefully and picking up a black v-neck t-shirt from where it had been waiting on the bed.  “Looks like Dean and Crowley came into town about a week ago, just like Annemarie said.”  He put the t-shirt on gingerly, being extra careful with his shoulder.

“Why did they bother getting a motel room, though?” Delilah pondered out loud, running her brush through her hair and letting it cascade down her back.  “Demons don’t sleep, do they?”

Sam looked at her with a slight frown on his face, like he was trying to figure something out, “According to the desk clerk at the motel, they mostly went back there… accompanied.”

Delilah turned away from him.  What would have been a stab just an hour ago, was barely a prod, but still there as she considered the implications of this.  Dean and Crowley… bunk buddies and bringing women back to the motel.  “Dean and Crowley?  Having… what… orgies?” she said out loud, unsure.  She thought about this some more, failing to wrap her mind around it: Dean and Crowley and a couple of girls…  She wondered if Crowley’s sexual indiscrimination had led to the two of them having sex too.  Her interactions with the King of Hell as well as his interactions with both brothers always strayed towards the sexual, the demon not seeming to care about gender… but Dean.  He had always been into women, as far as she knew anyways.  Had Dean’s nose dive into demonhood changed his sexual appetite?  It’s possible, she supposed.

Sam rubbed at his eyebrow, looking uncomfortable, “I dunno.  The whole thing is weird.  I mean…” he turned away, picking up his brace from the table and turning it in his hands, holding his right arm against his side.  “The more we look into what Dean’s been up to…  It just sounds like Vegas Week Dean dialed up to 11.”

Delilah put her brush down, smoothing the puff out of her hair, and stopped her movements completely, confused.  “Wait…  Vegas Week Dean?”

Sam turned towards her, and locked eyes with her.  Something he saw there must have amused him because a smile slowly spread on his face, “Um... yeah.  Dean has this tradition.  Every year, he drags me down to Vegas for a week of…  just… Vegas: booze, girls, and gambling.”

“You make it sound like torture,” Delilah said, laughing a little at Sam’s annoyed look.

“It’s what he likes to do, not me.  I go because it makes him happy.  Anyways, except for the beating humans up…  all this just sounds like my brother letting loose.  I don’t get it.  Demons are evil, twisted souls.”

Delilah watched him putting the sling on his right arm and trying to clip it in place over his t-shirt.  Something suddenly clicked in her head.  “Aren’t you going out tonight?” she asked him, frowning at his loungewear.

“No.  We’ve been chasing Dean all day with no new leads for his whereabouts.  Which means we’re back to square one.  I’m gonna stay in, search the news for fresh reports.  I’m just hoping he hasn’t skipped town.”

“Exactly!  If all we have tonight is more digging through a haystack for a jerk of a needle, that can wait until tomorrow.  You have a date, or will, once you call Stephy.”

Sam turned towards her, looking like she had just suggested he kiss a monkey.  “We’re not having this discussion again.”

“That’s right, we’re not!” Delilah stood up and walked over to where she had dropped her shirt earlier.  She picked it up and fished out the bill from the restaurant.  She stalked back over to Sam and shoved it in his hand.  “You are calling that girl and you two crazy kids are going to have a good time.  And if the evening starts looking like you need a place to engage in some sexual activity,” Sam glared at her some more, “Well you can bring her back here,” she finished, diving her hand into his jogging pants pocket to fish out his cell phone.

Sam jerked his hips away from her searching fingers and she pulled her hand out of his pocket in victory.  “This is dumb,” he said as she typed the phone number into his phone, “We need to find Dean.” It was only a half-hearted attempt to keep his resolve, clearly Delilah was wearing him down.  She pushed on.

“Sam!  You just said it yourself, we’ve got no leads!  Take the fucking night off.”  She pushed on his good shoulder just enough to make him sit back down on the bed with a grunt.  For a moment, her hand lingered on the corded muscles beneath the thin t-shirt and her earlier desire came back full-force.  She felt her stomach flip and she looked down at his face.  It was a good thing he was looking down at his phone – she must have given it back to him… right? – otherwise she might have just given in.  As it was though, she let go his shoulder and moved to the side to forage through his clothes duffel sitting on the floor between the beds.  She pulled out a fresh pair of jeans and a red and black flannel shirt she hadn’t seen on him before as she heard him talking on the phone.

She laid the clothes out on the bed and turned around to head back into the bathroom to finish her own preparations for the evening ahead.  To her surprise, her hair was actually behaving – laying mostly flat down her back.  She wet the ends and curled them around her finger to give them a more defined bounce and then applied her makeup.  She caught her full reflection in the small mirror and she looked at the girl staring back at her with the smoky eye shadow and dark lipstick.  For a moment she was hit by how lost she looked.  She had fallen so low, and she was having a hard time getting back up.  God, she needed a drink… or ten.  She needed to get laid… or into a bar brawl.

She walked back out of the washroom to find Sam dressed and putting on his socks.  He looked really good in that red flannel, something about the way it stretched on his shoulders, or maybe it was that the first button was low enough to see the cut of his black V-neck t-shirt underneath… something about it, just made him look simply amazing.  He stood up and picked up the brace again, pulling his right arm through it and reaching behind him for the strap.

“Here, lemme help,” Delilah said as she walked up to stand in front of his towering body.  She reached around him, slipping her arm between his side and arm, bringing her face right up close to his chest as she grabbed the dangling strap end.  She brought it around his torso, making sure it wasn’t twisted, and then clipped it in place.  She got a whiff of his scent, subtler than his brother, but with spicy sweet tones of bergamot.  She looked up at him and this time he was looking at her, his hair falling forward gently.  Her stomach flopped again, a buzzing in her brain blocking the logical side from taking command.

Trance-like, she reached up with her hands and gently laid one on his jaw, below his ear while the other wrapped around his neck, her fingers lost in the full softness of his long hair as she pulled him down to her.  Maybe Sam was too confused or surprised to hold back, maybe he didn’t realize her muddled intentions, or maybe he knew and didn’t want to fight it any more than she did… whatever was going on in his own mind, their lips connected sending another dull throb to her sex.

Her heart pounded, and her autonomous system was throwing up equal amounts of red flags and green lights, but she pressed herself against him, nonetheless, his injured arm trapped between them.  She felt his other hand land on her hip, but he didn’t push her away.  Which is when she realized he was kissing her back, his lips as demanding as hers, and she tightened her grip on his hair and wrapped her arm around his neck keeping him close.  She could feel the heat from his palm as he smoothed his hand from her hip to the middle of her lower back, and closed his fist tightly, holding onto the lower edge of her shirt.  Feelings of desperation welled up inside her and she lost all control of her body, barely aware of her hands as they ran down his chest and started undoing his shirt buttons.

“Delilah,” she heard Sam say, his voice sounding husky.

She grabbed him around the neck again and slammed his mouth down on hers before he could break the spell, and before her mind could catch up with her actions.  She kept a firm hold on him with one hand as their lips devoured each other and she dove the other under the waistband of his jeans.  She barely had time to register the potential girth of his budding erection when Sam’s hand found its way to her shoulder and firmly pushed her away and out of reach.

“Delilah, stop,” he said, his voice still husky from the passion.

Embarrassment flooded her face with blood and she felt confused and hurt.  She looked towards the door, the lust gone, replaced by the intense need to get the fuck out of that room; the air suddenly too thin for her lungs, the walls spinning like a merry-go-round.

She pulled away from Sam’s hand on her shoulder and quickly made her way toward the door of the little room.

“Delilah, wait,” he said, turning to follow her.

“No, Sam…  I’m sorry…  I... I can’t…” She cut herself off and reached down to pull on her boots’ tags while she jammed her feet into them.

“Wait... stop…  Please.  We have to talk about this.”

Delilah grabbed the handle of the motel door, the urgent need to get away from him, from the room, from her own fucked up life too great.  She pulled on it, but Sam’s hand appeared just above her head and pushed the door closed again.  She could feel him standing just behind her in the narrow entrance, his body throwing off heat like a space heater on a cold day.  Panic and exhaustion mixed, and she suppressed the sob trying to climb out of her throat.

“Please, Sam,” she whispered shakily, just barely holding on to her composure, “Just let me go.”

There was a pause, barely a breath long, when she didn’t know if Sam would step back, or press into her, and she didn’t know which one she wanted more.  A silent tear made its way down her cheek and she drew another shaky breath, her confusion and inner turmoil just too much.  She yearned for Sam, someone, anyone, to just make it all go away.

She pulled on the handle again and Sam stepped back, dropping his hand away.  She couldn’t look at him as she left.  She cracked the door open just barely enough for her to make her escape and then she was out and hurrying as far away from the room, from Sam as quickly as she could without running.


	11. Chapter 11

Ben was growing impatient.  Every breath he took came with the conviction that Dean Winchester was getting away.  It had been nearly an hour since Sam had gone into the motel, and it was taking everything he had in him not to burst in there and break down doors until he found them.  He had followed them to this middle-of-butt-fuck-nowhere town and he’d spent the day sitting in his own ball sweat and waiting around after these douchewads, and was he any closer to finding Dean? No, he had nothing.

 _Ben made his way up the dark stairs with his mother, his eyes wide at the collection of rifles hanging on the walls and leaning against door frames.  Books and guns.  Everywhere.  “Don’t touch the décor.  Assume it’s all loaded,” the old man called out.  He turned around to look the way the crotchety voice had come from and saw him standing with Dean and his brother…_ Sam Winchester?  Had he met him before now?  Well, duh! Fucking Sam Winchester had recognized him from somewhere after all…

Ben tried to focus on the scene that was quickly fading, but it was gone; vacuum sucked back to behind that wall in his mind.  Fuck this bullshit memory crap!

_“Trapped away in your noggin’, that’s a cruel little angel trick.”_

What the hell had that man meant by that? _DEMON!_ his mind whisper yelled at him again, sending shivers to wrack his body.  Get real man!  Angels?  Demons? That shit ain’t real.  You’re fucking losing it!

The more Ben sat still in that car the more trapped he was feeling.  He glanced at the sky, the sun getting closer to the top edge of the windshield.  How much longer was he going to sit there and waste his time?  He was definitely no closer to finding Dean.

_“Come on, why don’t you give me a hand?”  Ben followed Dean’s broad back to another bare room filled with boxes.  The couch looked saggy and strange under the white sheet someone had thrown over it.  When was the last time anyone had actually stayed here?  He could smell the dust and mold tickling his nose._

_“I don’t get it, Dean.  Why did we have to leave all our furniture behind?  This shit is all gross.”_

_“Don’t let your mother hear you talk that way.”_

_“Like you don’t say things that are like a thousand times worse?”_

_“Exactly!  She catches you cussing and she’s gonna box MY ears.”_

And gone again.  Ben hit the steering wheel in frustration.  “Shit! Damnit! Fuck!” he yelled out, feeling cramped and trapped in the driver’s seat of that dumbass car.  He was losing his mind waiting here.  And for what?  The off chance that that fucking gigantor or his psycho bitch girlfriend were going to lead him to Dean?

“Fuck this,” he said out loud as he turned the keys in the ignition.  He had found him before out in Michigan and he hadn’t needed anybody but himself then.  He could do it again, he just needed a photo.  If he could print out the picture that they had published before, he could show that around and start looking again.

His mind settled back to a more stable, if still angry, state and he felt like this was the first clear plan he’d had since deciding to show his mom’s photo to the pimple-faced fucktard at the Gas n Sip back home.  He pulled the car out of the parking lot and started down the road.  He had barely gone a mile when the engine gave a strange coughing lurch and Ben’s eyes dropped down to the gas gauge.  “Seriously?” he muttered as he saw the needle sitting in the red and the little gas pump light turned on. “Fucking figures.”

He scanned the street ahead and spotted a gas station just a little ways down the road in the direction he was heading.  He managed to pull up to the nearest pump before the dry engine sputtered and coughed to a stop.  Ben climbed out of the car, relieved to find that the tank was at least on the right side.  He stared at the squarish groove around where the gas cap should be, and he frowned, confused.  He tried to jam his fingers in there to pry it open, he tried pushing on it hoping it would pop out, but nothing happened.  It stayed obstinately closed.

“You have to release the catch,” a girl’s voice said from behind him.

Ben turned around startled, his heart racing like he’d been caught stealing.  He was staring at a girl who was for sure at least five years older than him.  Her long brown hair was streaked in all colours of the rainbow, and she had piercings in her nose, eyebrow and all up her ears.  She had torn leggings and a jean skirt, her band tank was too tight, her cleavage practically popping out the top even with the man’s plaid shirt she had on top and knotted at the waist.  Ben was aware that he’d been staring at her openly for too long when she snapped her fingers at him, the tin bangles on her arm making a delightful clinking.

“Hey kid!  You there?”

Ben sputtered a little and could feel the heat creeping up his neck.  Soon it would be burning his cheeks and he’d really be embarrassed.  Then, she laughed; a delicate wind chiming kind of laugh before she walked over to the driver’s door and pulled it open.  Ben didn’t care at this point, she could have taken off with the car and he would’ve kept right on standing there.  She bent over the seat, reaching for something on the ground and her ass was all he could see, her legs disappearing under the edge of her skirt and he couldn’t help but tilt his head, wondering how much further they went and how she would feel on the inside; all wet and tight.  He felt the familiar, if unwelcome, tensing in his pants and he quickly turned to face away from her.  The little door for the gas popped open like magic with a clunk and he seized his opportunity to pretend to do something else… by doing something else.

“There ya go, kid!” she called out to him.

“Uh… thanks,” he answered, awkwardly, relieved that his jeans were loose enough that his half chub wasn’t showing.  Not that it mattered as the girl walked back over to her own car on the other side of the pump.  He couldn’t help but feel disappointed.  He reached for the nozzle and selected the unleaded fuel feeling like the world’s biggest dork.

_“Hey Ben, why don’t you gas ‘er up?”  He stared at the black car reverently, filled with excitement and happiness._

He looked over the white Maxima’s boring lines and felt nothing.  Give him a classic muscle car any day over this ugly crap that filled the streets.  He watched the numbers on the pump climb and his eyes kept going from one line of numbers to the other…  Which one was the fucking price? 

The numbers stopped after what seemed like forever, a gurgling clunk came from the machine as it automatically cut off the flow of gasoline.  He looked at the numbers closely again as he shoved the nozzle back into the side of the pump.  From what he saw, he either had to pay nineteen bucks or sixty.

“Fuck,” Ben whispered, “How do people afford this shit?”

He thought about the bills he had taken from the woman at the McDonald’s, the thought of food instantly making his stomach groan.  What was he supposed to do?  Even if he wanted to waste his precious dollars on the gas he had just pumped into the car, he didn’t have sixty!  Ben looked around himself surreptitiously.  There were a lot of people, most of them heading home after a day’s work he guessed… They don’t have time to notice him slinking off.  He glanced at the cashier, his back turned to the pumps as he served customers at the counter.  He could probably go right in there and buy himself a couple snacks and the dumbass wouldn’t even know he had gas to pay.

The groan in Ben’s stomach pulled his feet towards the door, and he couldn’t help the cocky grin that spread on his face.  He walked into the large convenience store and made his way to the chips aisle.  He grabbed a large bag of Doritos, then made his way to the fridge door for a Pepsi.  His spoils in his arms he headed over to the line up for the cash.  He looked around at the people and the ceiling, through the windows and at all the shoes on feet, his eyes just flitting around as he tried to look like every other bored person there.  When he drew closer to the cash register, his hand shot out and he tucked a bag of M&Ms in his pocket.  Another sly smile and a step, and he was at the counter.

“Hey,” the clerk said, barely looking at Ben while he took his Pepsi and chips to scan them.

“Hey man,” Ben answered cheerfully.

“And the gas on 3?”

Ben’s smile faltered for a second as he pulled out a twenty to pay for his food.  His mind raced.  He had been spotted!  What now?  Run?  He looked around at all the people in the store and seriously thought about just bolting.  Then his mind cleared, and the lie slipped into his head like it had always been there, smooth and slick.

“Naw man, my old man’s gonna pay for the gas.  He’s in the can.”

Ben gave the cashier a smile that felt far from natural, but he prayed looked authentic as his heart rate failed to slow.  The cashier glanced down the hallway that led to the washrooms, then at the long line up of people.  He looked back down at the screen displaying the purchases and then out the window.  Ben forced a lump of nothing down his throat and waited, his fake smile jammed in place not betraying, he hoped, his inner stress.  Finally, the clerk took Ben’s money and put his purchases in a generic white plastic bag.

“Thank you, have a nice day,” he said handing Ben his change and the bag.  He took his things and headed back out the door, feeling the flip flopping of his stomach in his shoes.  He consciously had to stop himself from breaking into a run.

He only glanced back once to see if the clerk was going to change his mind, unable to resist the fear of being caught and needing to check if he would be chased.  The guy seemed as busy as before with the line of customers and Ben breathed a sigh of relief.  He turned back towards where the car was parked by the pump just in time to register the girl looking at something on her phone, but not in time to stop from running into her headlong.

She let out a surprised yelp when she saw him at the last minute and tried to avoid colliding with him.  The inevitable happened, and soft squishy body parts crashed into not so squishy sinew and bone and electronics hit the ground while Ben desperately lunged forward to try and stop the girl from joining it.

A stressful second later, he found that he had the girl who had helped him out earlier held tightly in his arms.  She looked into his face with her wide doe-like eyes and Ben very nearly leaned forward, hypnotized as he was by the splash of freckles on her nose.

“You planning on letting me go soon?” she said loud enough for him to startle out of the fantasy that had popped into his head thinking about her curves, pressed up against him and her plump lips.

He stepped away from her quickly like she had somehow singed him, and she bent down to pick up her phone.  It didn’t seem to be damaged and she wiped it off and stuck it back in her pocket.

“You should really watch where you’re going,” she said to him, annoyed.

Ben frowned, “Sorry,” he said, his brain dismissing that she had also not been looking where she was going.  “Um… bye,” he added lamely, and glanced at the white Maxima; the urgency to get away from the station before the clerk realized there was no one coming out of the washroom to pay for the gas making him itch to get a move on.

“Yeah, bye,” the girl answered, just watching him as he moved past her.  “Hey kid!” she called out to him quickly.  He turned around to look at her.  “How old are you?”

“What?  Why?” Ben asked her, completely confused by the question.

The girl’s lips pulled into a coy half smile and she walked towards him, stopping right in front of him.  Ben looked down at her, still confused but distracted by the perfection of her rounded cleavage, and she grabbed his hand in hers.  He noticed absently how tiny her hand looked holding his, still un-used to his growing body.  “Just trying to figure out what kind of trouble I’m getting myself into if I do this.”

She pulled something out of her pocket and pushed the end with her thumb, making a clicking sound.  For a half second, Ben was convinced that she had pulled a knife on him, and almost yanked his hand back when he felt the sharp point against his skin, but then his brain caught up to his senses and he realized she was writing something in his hand.  She looked up again, with another click of her pen and he was staring at the ten digits written on his palm, confused…  what?  Quick as a sting, she stretched onto her toes and pressed those wondrous lips to the corner his mouth.  Before he could react, she had already stepped back; not that he could really think with the loud, sharp pitch in his ears blocking out all thoughts… what?  A smile stretched her face, and she turned away, headed towards the store.  Ben’s brain finally kicked back into gear and thoughts buzzed by too fast for him to latch onto.  His lies and his plans all jumbled together and mixed with his idle fantasies and he couldn’t grab onto anything coherent.  But she was getting away!  And he desperately wanted her not to do that.

“Um… hey!” he called out to her.  She turned around and the words slipped out before he could stop them.  “Do you know where the public library is?” What?!  Dork!  Fucking dumbass nerd!

The smile stretched her lips to reveal the straightest, whitest teeth he had ever seen, her entire face lighting up and he forgot all about his embarrassing question.  “It’s about five miles down that way,” she said pointing down the road, “take a left on First.”

“Thanks,” he said looking down the road where she had pointed.

“You gonna call me when you’re done your homework?” she asked, pulling his attention back.

She was giving him that calculating look again, like she was sizing him up.  He looked down at her tits in her tight shirt and her long legs and thought about having them wrapped around his hips.  His dick gave a twitch and he turned around again, heading for the car to hide his stupid body’s uncontrollable reactions.  He played it cool as he slipped behind the wheel of the car and turned the key in the ignition.  She had waited for his eyes to land on her again before turning around and sashaying through the door, swinging her hips.

“Fuck,” Ben said in confused awe.  What in the hell was that?  What could a girl like that even see in a skinny fucking kid like him?  That was a question he didn’t particularly want to try and understand, he much preferred to bask in the potential.  Maybe he would call her later… see if she wanted _to fuck,_ to have a coffee or something.  His brain buzzed again, and his hair stood on end as he imagined kissing her, and thought about her tits pressed against him.  Images of the couple fucking back at the motel that morning joined the party and he thought about jerking off, only his brain had him pounding into the girl, pulling back on her multi-coloured hair.

By the time he found the library and pulled up to a parking spot, he had a raging hard on.  _Damnit!_   He thought as he glanced around the parked cars and then at the tall windows of the building.  It’s not like he could just whip his cock out and beat one out right there.  _Gotta think about something else._   He tried to focus on Math; he named all the trig formulas he could think of and how to calculate mass and circumference and angles.  But his mind just kept drifting back to that motel room and the pleasure that would come with pushing his cock into her wet pussy…  Stop it!

He shifted and tried again, this time he tried to name all the flavours of Ben and Jerry’s ice cream.  And he thought about how much he wanted to spank her ass.

Damnit.  He closed his eyes and leaned back his head against the seat.  _He pushed open the motel room door tucking the key back into his jeans.  The sweet, sickly smell of piss hit his nose first followed by a strange metallic scent that clung to the back of his throat and he couldn’t figure out what he was looking at.  He approached the bed, recognizing a long bare leg dangling over the edge.  There was red everywhere and he couldn’t remember there being anything red before.  He drew up to the bed and looked down.  Vomit climbed his throat and flooded his mouth as he saw his mother’s glazed brown eyes staring off to the side, unseeing.  Her body was all spread out on the bed and he realized she was naked at the same time that he understood that all the red wasn’t some odd sheet or shirt, but in fact was blood from where she had been cut open, gutted like an animal._

Ben gasped and opened his eyes again, the taste of vomit in his mouth and he swallowed down the excess saliva in an attempt to not throw up.  The shock of the memory subsided once more, and a mixture of sadness, anger and horror swirled around his mind.  He remembered a time when things had been so much simpler for them.  Just him and his mom trying to find their place in the world.  He looked out the windshield of the car he was sitting in, his vision swimming in unshed tears.  What would she say if she could see him now?  Theft, abduction, clawing his way through life at the point of a knife…  He sighed.  He knew exactly what she would think.  But it’s not like she could say anything anymore.

The familiar anger replaced the sadness and horror and Ben thought again about the man his mother had been trying to find, the man he could not remember but was there, like an itch at the back of his mind.  This was all his fault.  And he would pay for what he had done to his life.

Ben pushed open the car door and stepped out, looking at the typical red brick and green roof of the public building in front of him.  All these places looked the same to him.  He pushed the door closed again and headed inside.

The hush of a quiet building full of people whispering and shuffling around gave Ben the chills.  It wasn’t peaceful, it was creepy, like a thousand people had suddenly lost their voices.  He shook himself and looked around at the blond middle-aged librarian checking in books from a pile on the welcome desk.  She glanced up and smiled at him before going back to her work.

Sticking his hands in his pockets, Ben made his way inside the library room, the musty smell of books, old and new, tickled his nose and he rubbed at it, pressing in his nostril to try and get that prickling sensation to go away.  He walked past the metal stacks filled with books of varying heights and thicknesses, all with a white library code sticker at the base of the spine somehow making all the different colours and styles of book look exactly the same.  Finally, at the back of the library he spotted the row of computer screens set up in front of a tall glass window that gave on the back of the library and the municipal pool.

He settled himself in a rickety wooden chair and wiggled the mouse to wake up the sleeping computer.  Within seconds he was opening search window after search window, starting with the FBI’s most wanted page and then running a search for Dean Winchester in the Michigan State Police database as well.  He found the grainy picture that had popped into his Facebook feed back in Detroit and had started him on this crazy journey.  He right clicked on the picture and sent it to the printer.

He bent over the keyboard, suddenly getting the idea to look through the local police database for Dean.  Maybe he had done something locally that had led his brother and that girl here to find him.  He searched through the local alerts and people the cops wanted found.  He went from search to search, refining his queries as he went but not finding anything particularly significant.

Movement reflected in the window caught his attention and he looked up from the screen to see what looked like a cop in the room behind him.  He turned around, startled, even as he reasoned that there was no indication that they were there for him.  The only proof of his guilt of anything was what he knew in his head… and he wasn’t about to let this cop think there was anything suspicious about some kid being at the library.  He turned back around and quickly wiped the search history in the browser and then he walked over to the printer off to the side to get the picture he had printed.  He looked down at the paper, satisfied that with this he would be able to start his search again.  More movement caught his attention off to the side and he looked again, noticing a second cop making his way around the stacks quietly.

What the hell was going on?  A crack down on a friggin library?  Maybe the docile librarian was actually peddling crack to the kids?  Ben snickered at his dumb thoughts and folded the paper up to tuck it into his jeans pocket.  Either way, no sense in sticking around to watch the show and risk getting caught himself.  Better get going now that he had what he needed.  He made his way back to the front of the library.  The librarian was looking around, the confusion clear on her face as she watched the improbably raid going on between the stacks.  Probably not expecting the law to come down on her.  He nodded his head at her and she locked eyes with him looking, if anything, even more startled.  He frowned but kept going, heading back out the front door and to the parked Maxima.

There were two cop cars in the parking lot with their red and blue lights flashing against the brick front of the building.  Ben averted his eyes reflexively even if he saw no one waiting in the cars.  The cops were most likely all inside doing... whatever they were there for.  He hit the unlock button on the car key’s remote and the doors unlocked with a clunk.  Ben’s hair stood on end suddenly as he reached for the handle, hyper aware as everything around him slowed down and the details sank in: the wind blowing the fresh leaves in the trees making that shushing sound; the crunch of gravel behind him; the extra sense he had developed in the homes that warned him danger was near… someone was creeping up on him.

“Keep your hands where we can see them and step away from the vehicle,” said a harsh voice behind him.  Ben’s heart pounded in his chest and he raised his arms to the side keeping them shoulder height.  The library door opened again and the two cops from before made their way out, their hands hovering over their firearms on their hips.  Adrenaline coursed through Ben’s veins but had no outlet as he stared around frantically – trapped on one side by the car and everywhere else by advancing cops. The buzzing in his brain started up in earnest as the cop behind him took his wrist and slapped a cold metal cuff around it leaving room for just the one thought: he was royally fucked.


	12. Heavy Fuel

_My life makes perfect sense,_

_Lust and food and violence._

_Sex and money are my major kicks,_

_Get me in a fight, I like the dirty tricks._

 

_‘Cause if you wanna run cool,_

_You gotta run on heavy, heavy fuel._

 

Pain.  Light piercing her head through her eyes.  Blood red blurs.  Her tongue huge in her dry mouth.  Choking.  Felt like she was choking on her own tongue.  Saliva thick like putty and she couldn’t swallow it down.  She buried her throbbing head in her stale smelling pillow, trying to snuff out the light. Dreams danced around.  Dreams?  Or memories?

 _“I’ll bet you those fancy rings that I can wipe this table with your ass.”_ Had she really hustled those assholes?

 _“Skanky bitch.  I’ll show you how a slut like you can get a few bucks.”  Fingers wrapped around her throat, her body slammed back against the hard brick._   She rolled onto her back and raised her hand to her tender throat.

_“Big man like you, lemme guess… you can’t even get it up if the girl doesn’t struggle right?  Try it.  I dare ya.”  Spit on his bearded face.  Stale breath in hers._

_“Psycho bitch.” The feel of her belt being undone, the sound of his fly coming down like a rip in her brain.  The pain of fingers digging into her thigh, forcing her legs apart._

Tears rolled down the sides of her face and into the pillow as she struggled to remember if the man had gone through with his threat or not.  What had happened?  Her head throbbed again painfully.  She rolled onto her side, curling into a ball.  She couldn’t remember.  “ _You’re nothing but an easy fuck.”  Dean’s hand around her neck. “That’s all you ever were.”_

_Beetle black eyes and fountains of blood._

_“You need to get away from here.”  Low, threatening growl.  Cold air on her bare skin.  Dean._ What?

 _Whiskey.  Cheap fucking whiskey scratching her throat._   Or was that from screaming?

 _“CROWLEY!”  Cold night air.  Darkness._ Why were there no lights? _“THIS IS YOUR FAULT, YOU FUCK!” Anger.  Pain.  Shaky breath.  “CROWLEY!  YOU COWARD!”  Collapse.  Cold.  Dark.  Dogs barking in the distance.  Hellhounds?  Let them come._

_“Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost.  Hello, Lamb.”  Rage!  Anger!_

Did she see Crowley?  Her head throbbed again, and she wrapped her fingers around the back of it, trying to stop it from blowing apart.

_“You did this to him!”_

_“No, you did this to yourself, Lamb.  You should have known better.  Feelings are such a human inconvenience.”_

_“Fuck you!” Crying.  Pain.  The soft rich fabric under her cheek.  “I want him back.  Give him back to me.”  Sadness.  Pain.  Soul crushing need.  Awkward arms around her._

_“Sweet Lamb.  Your overwhelming humanity is disgusting.  Be careful what you wish for.”_

How much of that was real?  How much of it was passed out dreaming, or drunken imaginings?  Delilah turned her head to the side, and she caught the lingering smell of sulfur.  She jumped into action, like a tightly coiled spring and looked around herself panicked that Crowley had captured her again.  She crouched on the mattress and looked around at the familiar, cheap seventies décor, though she couldn’t place it in her memories.  A door to her right clicked as it opened, and she turned to face the threat, painfully aware that she had no weapons.

Sam closed the motel room door behind him.  He was holding a plastic bag with the Gas N Sip logo on it.  Everything blurred to dull painful perception, and she remembered the shit motel room she and Sam were bunking in.  Another painful throb from her head and suddenly the lights were too bright again.  She sat back, her hands trying to contain the pain in her skull again as she closed her eyes with a keening whine.

She was back?  How?  Why?  Had it just been a dream then?  Good God… did she make a deal with Crowley?  Had Dean been there?

She felt Sam’s presence moving around the room: the sound of the plastic bag being set down on the breakfast counter loud like fireworks.  He came to sit on the edge of the other bed, facing her.  She felt something smooth and cold touch her arm and she startled away from it before opening her eyes and seeing the plastic water bottle he was holding out to her.  She took it from him gratefully and unscrewed the cap, her cotton mouth choking her once more.  She took a gulp that drained nearly half of the bottle and savoured the feel of the cold liquid soothing her sore throat.

She felt something nudge against her arm again, this time it was warm, and she looked down to see Sam’s long fingers connected to his upturned palm and holding out two white pills.  She took them from him and popped them in her mouth, quickly followed by more water before her head realized she was moving too quickly and decided to punish her again.

“What happened last night?” Delilah wondered out loud, her body turning to jelly as she draped herself over her bent knee, trying to make herself as small as possible.  Maybe that would make things easier.

“I don’t know.  When I came back last night, you were passed out on the floor between the two beds reeking of sulfur.”  Sam was sounding more concerned than disgusted, but Delilah’s head went straight back to panicking that she had maybe made a deal with Crowley…  Well, Crowley or no, it seems a demon was involved if Sam had smelled the sulfur too.

With another keening whine she crossed her arms over her head.  Shame, confusion and pain blended together into one and saturated all her senses: an assault on her body and soul.  She let herself roll forward and dropped her head back down onto the pillow.

“Are you hurt?” Sam asked her softly, and she turned her head to the side to see the concerned frown wrinkling his forehead.  She thought again about the feel of the man’s hand digging into her thigh, of his fingers around her throat, and she just couldn’t answer.

As the aspirin started taking effect and the throbbing in her head subsided, she felt the hot, sharper pull of something else on her face.  She reached up and pressed her fingers to her lip, the pain more pronounced as she realized her lip was split.  Was it from being too dry though?  Or had she been hit?

“I don’t know,” she whispered, genuinely unsure of what had happened the night before.  She tried not to panic as tears welled up in her eyes again.  She had been so fucking stupid.

“You want me to… um… check you over?”

She looked over at him again, his face only showed concern and yet she felt a deep shame that things had gone so beyond her control.  She nodded and then closed her eyes again.  She heard the mattress springs release as he stood up from his bed and then her mattress dipped as he sat beside her.  He laid his hand on her shoulder gently, then swept it across her shoulder blades to help her sit up again.  He didn’t break contact as he slowly smoothed it down her spine to the bottom edge of her shirt.  He seemed to hesitate, and Delilah reached down with her hands and pulled it up and over her head, her hair falling back down to cover her.  Before her headache could catch up to her, she stood up from the bed and yanked off her jeans, pushing them down with her feet and kicking them off as she sat back down with a dizzy thump on the edge of the bed in nothing but her underwear and bra.

His free hand was so gentle as he swept her hair out of the way to look over her body for signs of wounds that needed tending to.  She couldn’t tell what he was seeing, his hand sometimes pausing as though to look more closely.  When she glanced at him, his eyebrows were knitted together, completely focused.  He finished inspecting her back without comment, and he guided her to turn towards him so he could look over her chest and stomach.  She knew what he would see there, the same things she saw every time she looked in the mirror: a puckered bullet wound – his thumb touched it, feather light; a not so old vampire bite – his hand covered it easily; the claw marks from the wendigo, still healing, but mostly just thin red lines running from her shoulder to the center of her chest.  He ran his fingers over her skin the same as he’d done for her back.  As his eyes scanned for injuries, Delilah was almost hypnotized by his focus, no lustful thoughts popping into her head, even though his fingers brushed the side of her covered breast like a gentle caress.

He hesitated on her hip as he inspected her legs, his eyes lingering on the healing claw marks on her calf.  He frowned again as his gaze rove back up to her thighs.  He laid his hand on the inside of her knee and looked up at her, as though asking for permission to continue his inspection.  She felt her face heat up as she let her legs open and she saw the dark bruising on her inner thigh that hadn’t been there before, adding to both suspicion and uncertainty about the outcome of her night’s debauchery.  Sam pursed his lips and she could see his jaw twitch as he ground his teeth.  Her eyes prickled with shameful tears and she closed her legs again, knowing there was nothing he could do to make that particular wound better.  She bent her head forward to hide her face in the curtain of her hair.

She shivered, the air in the room leaving her feeling cold, and she crossed her arms over her bare torso.  All she wanted was to curl up under a thick comforter and never come out again.  Sam’s hand came into view around the edge of her cascade of hair, and he carefully brushed it back over her shoulder as he looked up at her, determined again, clearly intending to finish his thorough inspection.  He continued to be gentle as he swept the obstinate strands of hair out of the way and turned her head left and right to look at her neck, his face a breath away and evoking her memories of the night before when she had kissed him.  She couldn’t help the tears spilling over as his eyes lingered on her mouth; she could only feel the awkward realization that in her drunken idiocy, she had tried to take advantage of her best friend… her only friend.  The tears left hot trails as they rolled down her cheeks and his eyes flicked to look at hers a moment before his thumb wiped the wetness away.

“I’m so sorry, Sam,” she whispered, closing her eyes so she wouldn’t have to see him looking down into her shattered soul.  “Last night, I…  I don’t know what came over me.  I just thought… I need…  I get why you… why you turned me away.”

Sam shushed her gently as he pulled her against him, his uninjured arm wrapping around her.  “You ran off so quick, you didn’t let me explain.”

It was so warm against his chest.  She drew up her legs and curled herself into a ball against him, trying to draw in his heat even as she felt the shivers shaking her body.  His hand was petting her hair slowly and she wished she could just stay there forever, nestled against him.  Safe.  “You don’t need to explain Sam.  I get it.  No sloppy seconds.”

“You,” Sam said, holding her chin in his hand and guiding her to look at him.  His eyes bore into hers, “are not sloppy seconds.”  He paused, looking at her expectantly and she nodded in her stunned stupor.  “I didn’t want you to do something you would regret.”

“Oh, you mean like getting black out drunk and waking up with the worst hang over of your life, unsure what kind of stupidity you got yourself into the night before?”

Sam ignored her attempt at making light of the situation, not even reacting to it, like he knew she was just full of bluster.  “You told me what the mirror did a few months back,” he said, his words dredging up everything from that shitshow, “I don’t want to be a nightmare come true for you.”

Delilah frowned, confused, none of this was making any sense.  What was he playing at exactly?  “Sam, don’t pretend this has anything to do with any of that stuff,” she said, irritated at him and pulling his hand away.  “I get it, okay?  You’re not interested.  That’s fine.  I wouldn’t be interested in a mess like me either.  You don’t have to make up this whole convoluted excuse.”

She looked down at her near naked self and decided that she needed to get dressed.  She stood up shakily as he continued.  “It’s not an excuse.  I’m being serious.  I know you have feelings for Dean.”

“Had,” she corrected him quickly, looking through her quickly disappearing clothing choices.

“I don’t believe that,” he said, still sitting on the edge of her bed, “You’re still in love with him, no matter how much of an ass he can be.  What he’s doing now… it’s because his soul is corrupted.  It’s not him going around beating up people and…”

“Fucking pretty waitresses?” she finished for him as she pulled a fresh, fitted shirt from her bag.  “You’re deluding yourself Sam.”

“Delilah.  Don’t give up hope.  We’ll get him back!  We _have_ to get him back.”

“He’s gone Sam.  Even if we catch him, and the cure works…  Maybe you’ll get your brother back, but the Dean that I fell for…  he never existed in the first place.”  Delilah squeezed her eyes shut.   _You’re nothing but an easy fuck.  That’s all you ever were._ Her head gave a more pronounced throb suddenly and she obstinately ignored it, even though her eyes felt like they were going to pop out of her skull… or into it.

Sam got up from the bed and walked over to where she was standing.  He didn’t touch her as he stood beside her, looking like he was trying so hard to piece the puzzle together.  “What do you mean?”

Delilah saw again as Dean’s fists flew at her face, she felt his fingers wrapped tightly around her throat, she heard again the sound of that retched dress being torn from her body.  And the words he spoke to her, those words that made her skin crawl and her heart go numb.  His words like blades cutting her to ribbons and leaving her soul in tatters.

She started to cry again, the tears streaked down her face.  Would they ever stop?  These betrayers, these leftover dreams that refused to let go.  These yearnings that clung on no matter how much she struggled and screamed on the inside.

Somewhere along her train of lost thoughts, Sam had pulled her against him again, and she realized she was sobbing into his beige and white plaid shirt, while she clung to him tightly.  She regained control of herself, both body and mind, and she stepped away, wiping the last of the tears and jotting up the whole loss of control to being hung over.  Sam let her go reluctantly, looking like he wanted to ask her a thousand questions, but was waiting for her to make the first move.  Well she wouldn’t.  She had set out from Sioux Falls to find and help him, and that meant finding, capturing and curing Dean.  They had a lot of work to do, especially since all their previous leads were dead ends.

She heard the familiar vibration from her phone and she walked over to her discarded jeans and dug it out of her pocket, a little confused.  She looked at the screen and saw she had a text message waiting for her.

_Where r u? Pls call Jody before she loses her friggin mind!_

“What is it?” asked Sam, drawing closer to her again.

Delilah sighed, “Jody’s going nuts again.  I didn’t check in.”

She quickly typed a reply to Alex: _In ND with Sam.  Everything is fine._

She put the phone away and finished getting dressed barely paying attention to what she had on her back.  It was time to get back to their purpose, enough with the chick flick, woe-is-me, piti-fucking-ful weeping.  Delilah’s head gave a throb again, the pain itself dulled by the acetaminophen Sam had given her, but the pressure still making her skull feel like it was stuffed to bursting with fluffy cotton.  She obstinately ignored it, like she ignored the rest of her aches and pains, and reached to the floor to pick up her jean jacket.  Something glinted in her duffel and she pulled out her angel blade.  A little foraging coughed up her gun and holster and she clipped it to the back of her belt.  She and Sam both stuffed the rest of their spares belonging into their respective bags, and Sam took everything in his good hand, nodding for her to go first.  She headed for the door, the room feeling cramped and stuffy, suddenly.  She slipped her blade into her belt and Sam followed her out.

The sun was thankfully hidden behind a thick cloud cover, a cool misty drizzle coated everything and felt wonderful on her overheating skin.  She took a deep breath – if the rain could just keep on falling, she would be alright.

“So, what’s our next move?” she asked Sam, reaching for the rental car’s silver handle.  “Did you manage to think of anything while you were out with Sara?”

“Steph,” Sam corrected her, “And I wasn’t out with her.”  Delilah turned to look at him, exasperated. “I went to see her at work before her shift ended and cancelled.”

“I don’t get you sometimes,” Delilah said smoothing the dampness into her hair, trying to make it behave without pulling on her sensitive head.

“Right.  Because what you did last night makes so much more sense?”  Delilah felt the comment like a stab to her gut and she stopped fussing with her hair suddenly, fixing a splotch on the pavement just beyond the edge of her booted toes.  Anything to avoid looking at Sam.  “I’m sorry,” he said softly, “That was uncalled for.”

“No.  You’re right.  It was stupid.  So, moving on…  Where do we go from here?  How do we track down Dean?  What’s our next step?”

She looked up at Sam who took a step away from the car and was looking around.  “First we get you some food.”

Delilah’s stomach lurched violently at the mention of food.  “Not happening.  Next suggestion!”  Sam obstinately kept walking away from the car craning his neck around up and down the street.  In a huff, Delilah stalked off after him intending to drag him back to the car if she had to.  “Seriously, Sam…  stuffing food down my throat will only end with me barfing it all over you.”  Her stomach lurched again, and she swallowed with difficulty feeling her throat spasm.

“Just trust me, I’ve nursed enough of Dean’s hang overs to know that you’ll feel ten times better with some food in you.  Besides, when’s the last time you ate?  Lunch yesterday?”

 “Could always try a little Highland Fling to cure what ails you, Lamb.”

Delilah startled around to face the King of Hell in his black Armani suit pulling the angel blade smoothly out from her belt.  She held it in her hand ready to strike at the smug looking man who was standing by the trunk of her rental car, his hands in his jacket pockets like he was just shooting the breeze with some old friends.

“Crowley!” she heard Sam practically growl behind her.

“Hello, Bullwinkle.  Miss me?”

Delilah raised her angel blade, feeling all the hate and anger at the situation and at the demon before her and she lunged at him, aiming the blade for his meat suit’s heart.  With movements so quick and graceful it was like he had teleported, Crowley disarmed her, the blade clattering to the ground and he seized her wrist and turned her around, holding her captive against his chest.

All she could smell was the lingering scent of sulfur as she struggled against his iron bar-like grip, lifting her legs off the ground trying to swing out of his hold, unsuccessfully.

“Come now, pet.  After that beautiful moment we shared last night?  How is that any way to treat your saviour?” Delilah’s whole body felt limp like her bones had turned to rubber as some of the glimpses of the previous night’s events were validated.  Does that mean Dean had been there too?

“Let her go, Crowley!” Sam barked, advancing on them, the demon knife in his left hand, his right arm held in place and useless in the sling.

“Not just yet.  She’s good insurance this one.  Look how hot and bothered you are.”

Delilah screamed and doubled up her efforts to get out of Crowley’s hold, feeling more and more useless that no matter where she kicked, she could not get him to budge.  “Fuck!”  God she was so fed up of being at the mercy of all these fucking monsters!

“Put the knife down, Samantha.  You and I both know you won’t risk hurting her.”

“You don’t know half the things I’m capable of if it means getting my brother back.”  The tendons in Sam’s neck looked ready to snap with the fierceness of his words, his eyes flashing in the dulled lighting of the rainy skies.

“Don’t I?”  Delilah struggled against him again, repeating her useless actions and still hoping they would lead to her release.  “Hush, Lamb,” he rumbled against her ear, “The fight’s going out of him already, don’t you see?”

Delilah looked up, flipping her hair out of her face and she saw the shaken quality emerging out from behind Sam’s murderous gaze as he visibly swallowed.  He lowered the blade and straightened out of his stance, his jaw twitching from his teeth grinding together.

“There, much more civilized.  Besides, you want Dean?  I’m here to give him to you.”

“What?” Delilah and Sam said simultaneously, confusion blocking all other response and Delilah even forgot to struggle against her captor.

“Little prat’s bad for business.  He’s uncontrollable.  Must be the mark.”  Delilah tried to wrap her head around what Crowley was saying…  Was he seriously going to give them Dean?  “Anyway,” he went on, “Dean’s your problem now.  Again.  Forever.”

“Then, where is he?” Sam growled, taking a step closer to her and Crowley, but lowering the knife.

“First, there’s the small matter of my finder’s fee.”  Sam’s face fell, and she could sense his weariness even across the eight feet that separated them.  Delilah felt Crowley’s hot breath against her ear again as he shifted his attention back to her.  “I’m going to let you go now.  It would be in everybody’s best interest if you did not go for your weapons again.”

Delilah’s heart was racing – torn between her hatred of Crowley and what he had done and her promise to help Sam find his brother again.  She understood Sam’s weariness too, Crowley’s silver platters were always lined in barbed wire.  What price would they have to pay for his treason?  She felt Crowley’s hold loosen and she pulled away from him quickly, turning so she could face whatever threat he still represented regardless of his cooperative guise.

“So, what do you want Crowley?” asked Sam, sounding resigned and weary.

“I want the First Blade,” he said simply, avoiding all his usual circuitous talk.

“That blade is useless without Dean,” Delilah said, frowning, “It needs the power of the Mark.”

“Exactly.  Dean with the blade is too powerful and spells danger for me and my kingdom.  Dean without the blade is not as much of a concern.  I’m just levelling the playing field a bit.”

“And how do you propose we get the blade?” Delilah asked him, crossing her arms over her chest.

“I leave that to your imaginative minds.  You can find Dean at the Flamingo Lounge and Bar two towns over.  I’ll come collect when you have him.”

Before Delilah or Sam could protest, Crowley vanished, no trace of his passage left behind but the faint scent of sulfur.  The sun pierced the clouds suddenly and a few stray rays lit up the darkened pavement.  Delilah felt a surge of energy, her hair standing on end as she realized that once again, sheer dumb fucking luck had given them exactly what they needed to reach their goal.  It subsided quickly, though, as she remembered her confrontation with Dean four days past, as he kneeled over her on the lawn outside Jody’s house, and the cold, indifference of his demon black eyes.  She had expected violence, when she had thought that Dean had been possessed.  Did him being a demon himself, as opposed to possessed, change what had happened that morning?  She didn’t think it had, a demon is a demon and it needed killing or curing, but…  she thought again about the gentleness of his touch, and then the sadness in his irises as the black had disappeared between blinks.

Did she dare hope that Dean might surrender if they caught up to him?  Surely he would, if he wanted to be cured.  But what if he didn’t?  What if Dean liked being a demon?

“How are we going to do this, Sam?”

“We’re going to need a plan.”


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! I'm back! Here's hoping the words will keep flowing! In the meantime, have another chapter. I might not post again for a while, because I hate posting a chapter at a time, but I wanted you guys to know that I was back at it, and churning out story :-)
> 
> Cheers!

Ben watched as the sun came up in the window at the end of the narrow cell block – small town; small jail.  Not that he could see the sun… or the window for that matter.  What he could see through the bars of his cell was the growing patch of light on the hallway wall.  He had been fixated on that patch since it had started growing brighter, going from a barely defined dim square of slightly brighter than the dimly lit cement blocks to a distinctive square-shaped spot light.

He stared because it was better than trying to sleep with all the thoughts going through his head.  There were so many, all jumbling together: insults, rants, pleading, his mother dead on the bed, his mother smiling, playing in the yard, getting the shit kicked out of him, working on a car engine with Dean, riding his bicycle, reading comics on his bed, running away, driving the Maxima.

There didn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to any of it; one thought flowed into the next, blending and warping.  Good memories merged with bad ones leaving a sour taste in his mouth and all he could do was let them swirl.  He found that more and more of these passive thoughts involved events that he didn’t fully remember, but they felt like more than simple daydreams to him.  And Dean Winchester often appeared front and centre in these.  What frustrated him the most was that he wanted to remain angry at the man, but the pull of these forgotten memories was telling him otherwise.  He had loved Dean once; he was the only father figure he’d ever had in his life.

Ben shook himself.

No.  He was responsible for his mother’s bloody and gruesome death.  He was responsible for his life being the shit storm that it was.  He was responsible for him being locked away behind bars.  It was only a matter of time before the cops figured out who he was and then they’d send him back to Detroit, to that boys’ home where he had to fight tooth and nail and be on his fucking guard at all times.  Sleep with one eye open, just like Metallica says in the song.

His mind wandered back, for what felt like the hundredth time, to when the shit hit the fan earlier that evening.  Like all the other memories lashing out at him, he was incapable of stopping it, feeling the memory of the events taking over like a cheap fucking flashback in a bad movie.

 

Ben walked into the small-town police station with his head low.  He talked a lot of shit, but in the end, a cop with a gun and a badge was still a cop with a gun and a badge.  One thing he had learned from TV and from living on the mean streets was keep your damn mouth shut.  And he did.  He had no idea which of the many dumb fucking things he’d done that day had got him slammed in the pig pen, but he sure as fuck wasn’t going to give them more reasons.

 _“Try not to get yourself killed.”_  The memory of the man earlier that day made him shudder.  He had met him before, he knew it.  And he was bad news, he could feel it in his gut.  Did getting himself arrested count towards getting himself killed? He idly wondered, worried that the man would suddenly come back and be violently angry with him for getting caught.  Why the hell should he care what the man thought?  And why would the man care if he got himself killed?  Too many questions, not enough answers, just the twisting in his gut.

The beat cops led him to a room that looked more like a dentist’s waiting room than an interrogation room.  Where was the mirrored window for coppers to spy on the questioning incognito?  Where were the stark white walls to make the perps feel like animals in pens?  There were a couple chairs and a low table with a few dated magazines, ugly ass paintings on the wall.  There was even a large window he could look out of and see the comings and goings in the station parking lot.  He wondered if anyone had ever smashed through that window to get away.  Probably not, he decided as his closer inspection revealed a thin wire mesh inlay: reinforced.

The uniformed cop yanked his wrists forward and unlocked the cuffs, removing them.  With an air of complete disinterest, he folded them and clipped them back to his utility belt before turning and exiting the room.  Ben was left alone, rubbing at his wrists automatically though the cuffs had not left any bruises.  His eyes focused on the leftover ink on his finger tips, seeing again the flash of the camera as he held up the board with his information written on it in those ridiculous white plastic letters like the most boring kid’s spelling board.  He was so fucked.  They were going to run his prints and find out all they needed to know about him: loser kid from Detroit, street rat, no good, homeless, scum of the Earth.

Feeling hopeless and dejected, Ben let himself sink onto the cheap plastic chair and he stared ahead blankly at the table top that barely had a scratch on it, a further testament to his total incompetence… getting caught by boonieville coppers.  It’s like they had never had a perp in that room before.  If he had his knife he’d feel obligated to carve some crude words into the cheap surface, just to prove a point, but of course, that had been confiscated.

The door suddenly opened, startling Ben into looking up at who was coming in.  “Yeah Earl!  I told you yesterday, the stop sign on 8th needs fixin’!  So can we get to it before some poor shlub drives through that intersection and ends up putting some kid on a bike in the morgue?”

The only thing obvious to Ben was that this lady had some sort of authority, and didn’t seem to consider him a threat, coming in sideways as it were, her back to him and open to an attack from inside the room.  He didn’t hear the reply from the supposed Earl out in the bull pen, but boss-lady must have been satisfied because that’s when she started turning to look at who they had in the room.  Ben grabbed the nearest magazine and flipped it to the middle, sticking his nose to the plastic page, not really seeing what he was supposedly reading.

He could feel her eyes on him, but he didn’t want to look up, he didn’t want her to see how completely scared shitless he was.  She began to stroll around the room, he could hear the soles of her shoes connecting with the hard linoleum floor.  He glanced up at her when he was ninety percent sure she wasn’t looking at him.

She struck him more as a country housewife playing dress up than as a police officer, much less one with authority, like a lieutenant.  He could not bring himself to even think that she was maybe a sheriff.  She turned to face him and he could see that she had kind eyes.  Ben couldn’t look at them.  Fucking cops.  Fucking mind tricks.  He was fucking screwed.  He sat there, his mind racing, trying to find a lie, a threat, a plea, anything that would get him out of that room and that station, but he was stuck in panic mode, stuck with thoughts racing in a blinding uncontrollable whirlwind.  There was nothing he could say or do that would land him anywhere other than back in a group home or a youth detention centre.  On the other hand, not saying anything wasn’t exactly going to get him out of this shit place either.  Maybe he’d even end up somewhere worse.

“So,” the cop lady/soccer mom started, “you wanna tell me who y’are?  Name maybe?”

Ben glared, hoping that he was coming off as intimidating rather than terrified and in way over his head.

Soccer mom strolled around the room with her hands in her pockets, looking at minute details of the things in the room as though she hadn’t done it already a thousand times with a thousand different perps.  “This would be a lot simpler if you talked to me, kid.”  Ben glared some more.  Soccer mom waited.  “Riveting,” she said after a moment, rubbing her forehead with her hand.  “Alright, well, if this is how you want it, let me tell you what happens next.  We don’t have anything on you right now.”

“So let me go!” Ben almost yelped out before shutting his mouth again.

The cop lady’s nose twitched, and her eyes scanned him from head to toe, not in a menacing way, not in that stereotypical, hardened-cop-from-New-York-tired-of-the-bullshit way you see on all the TV shows, she was just looking at him, much like his own mom used to look at him when he tried to pass one over her quick.  _I swear I didn’t touch the cookie jar, mom!_ Ben shuddered again.  “We ran your prints.” Ben tried not to react, but his eyes flicked down to the table, too afraid of what would come next. If they ran his prints, they knew who he was.  “Nothing came up, which means you’re not in the local database.”  Ben frowned, holding back another plea to let him go.  “We’re trying the state database, and after that we go country-wide, but that takes time.  Time you’re gonna have to spend in lock up.”  She paused, her eyes scanning his face for something he could not begin to imagine.  What did it matter?  He was just some worthless shit.  “I’m not getting a bad kid vibe from you.  Maybe you’re just a kid whose life went sideways.”  She paused again, and Ben tried hard to hold back the sudden, intense desire to tell her everything.  About his mom, about how the homes treated him, about running away in search of…  No, not that. “Look, whoever you are, we can help you.  All we want is to figure out where you belong.”  She paused again.  Ben could see her standing by the window looking out at the parking lot.  He watched her from the corner of his eye.  It was a trick.  A fucking cop trick.  He wasn’t gonna fall for that shit.  She sighed and looked back towards him, “Your mother must be worried sick.  Do you want to call her?  Maybe she could come down and we can sort out this whole mess.”

Ben looked down at the grey table top and suddenly wished that everything could be as simple as calling his mom and she’d sort it all out.  As it were though, she was out of reach.  Who could he call?  He unclenched his fist and looked down at his right hand where the girl at the gas station had jotted down her phone number.  He briefly entertained the idea of calling her up, but what would he say, _Hey! Um…  so you wondered how much trouble you’d get into? Well, yeah, so I’m in jail…_   Smooth operatin’ there.  Ben hung his head lower.

Cop lady started talking again.  “Here's what’s going to happen.  The results from the other databases’ll come in, tomorrow, or maybe the day after.  Maybe we’ll find something out about you that makes you stay in prison for a long time, or maybe we don’t and you walk out those doors in 48 hours.  But that won’t solve anything for you if you’re stuck in a bad place.  I’m more interested in helping you out than shutting you in.  But you gotta help yourself first, and this silent treatment is not helping you.  I’m pretty sure you’re not the one we’re after anyways.

The credit card used to rent the car you’re driving was flagged for fraud a couple days back.  Car rental agencies being the greedy S.O.B.s they are sent out a BOLO to all their individual outposts who then passed the information on to their local cops.  A neat and simple way to basically send out a cross-country Most Wanted.  So here we are.  Only problem is that the car was rented to an Angus Young,” Ben couldn’t help himself from snorting, “and that’s clearly not you.  Since we can’t find the card itself on you, we don’t have anything concrete to link you up to this.  I can only assume that kid like you, maybe you came across the car somewhere?  Looked abandoned? Keys in the ignition?  Maybe you were looking for a quick way to get away from your situation.”  Ben narrowed his eyes at her, what the fuck did she know?  “I’ve worked with my share of runaways, I know the look.  You gotta help me here.  How did a car rented in Franklin, Nebraska by some old rocker end up with a scrawny kid in my backyard?”

“Oh, you know, same old story: Sex, Drugs, and Rock and Roll,” Ben said without thinking, sealing his mouth shut again quickly.

With another long sigh, she made her way to the door.  “Alright kid.  Have it your way.”  She pulled on the handle and held the door open, gesturing for him to go on out.

Could he possibly be free to go?  No fucking way!  He stood up cautiously, looking around for the crew hiding and waiting to announce he’d been caught on candid camera. His excitement was short-lived though when he walked ahead of the cop lady, in the direction she had shown him, which was nowhere near the way to the front doors.  He looked around, briefly considering making a run for it, but small though the police station was, there were plenty of cops milling around in their neat black uniforms, guns on their hips…  and he did not like his odds of getting to the doors without being tackled or getting a bullet in the ass.

Every step he took felt like a step closer to the gallows and when the traditional bars were slammed shut on him, the small area feeling like a kennel enclosure with the bars all around except for the cement block back wall, Ben felt it in his twisting gut and he rushed over to the free standing stainless steel toilet and threw up the contents of his stomach.

The room was lined on two sides with hard wooden benches like the ones you would expect to see in a school gym.  He made his way, shivering, to one of these, thankful to no one in particular that at least he didn’t have a cell mate.

 

Hours later, the sun was rising in the small window at the end of the hallway and he had no solution.  He had briefly contemplated telling the cop-lady what had happened, but when he thought about all the things he’d done on this road for revenge, he doubted anyone would look kindly on him and let him go.  No, his only hope now was to shut his mouth and hope his prints from Detroit didn’t make their way to Beulah before the holding time was up.  Ben dropped his throbbing head in his hands, his elbows resting on his knees, and he tried to take deep breaths to calm down and think.

“Well, you didn’t completely bollocks this up.  But if you were going for low-key, it’s clear you failed.”

Ben recognized the accent and the voice instantly and he startled to his feet, nearly falling back down on the bench when he realized the man in the black coat and suit wasn’t standing outside the bars but was in fact in the cell with him.

“How the fuck did you get in here?”

“Language, Ben,” the man said, locking eyes with him and staring steadily without so much as a blink.  Ben’s eyes were watering within seconds, but he didn’t want to look away from the man radiating threat and violence just standing there.  How did the man simply appear and disappear like that?  His nonchalance unnerved him; didn’t he care that he was now in a cell, in the middle of a police station?  Finally, he broke the silence.  “I came to fetch you.  Can’t have you miss out on your chance to relieve yourself of your parental rage.”

Ben’s heart skipped a beat.  What?  What the fuck did he just say?

“Come now.  Isn’t it what you want?  A chance at the title?  Toe-to-toe with Dean Winchester?  Best man wins… all that?  Don’t you want to bury your blade in his heart?”  Ben forced himself to swallow as the man pulled something out of his pocket and pushed on the button that made the blade of his own knife snap out.  Ben stared at it.  He distinctly remembered the cops taking that from him when they had processed him.  So what was it doing in this man’s hand?  And…

Ben narrowed his eyes, focusing on something odd on the blade itself, something dark, not catching the light like the steel blade normally did, something red.

Blood.  It was blood.  There was blood on his knife.  How did that get there?

“Where did you get that?”

The man’s face broke into an oily smile that twisted Ben’s gut as he flipped the blade and handed it to him handle first.  He took it reluctantly, unable to ignore that though the man had his thumb pressed right in the middle of the blood residue, it remained immaculately clean, like the blood couldn’t touch him.  “You’ll find that I’m just full of tricks.  Such as…”  He raised his hand in the air, thumb and middle finger pressed together and with a snap, the door of the cell just popped open.

Ben startled backwards again, clasping his fingers around the handle of the blade and brandishing it towards the man, the fear squeezing his guts and making him feel like he was going to shit his pants.  “Holy shit!” he gasped under his breath.  “What are you?”

The man turned his fashionably unshaven face and cold green eyes back towards him and the corner of his mouth pulled up in a smirk.  “I’m the King of Hell.”

The man promptly disappeared, leaving behind that faint smell of rotting eggs on the air.  Ben stared at the spot where he had been standing an instant before and he approached it cautiously, looking all around himself and wondering if he would appear again to kill him.  The King of Hell?  What the fuck did that mean?  Some sort of occult, Satan worshiping motherfucking bullshit?

Ben looked up at the open cell door and wondered when the fuzz was going to descend on him.  He frowned, his ears picking up barely anything from the police bullpen around the corner.  All night he had been able to hear the quiet but constant, indecipherable babble of people at work, even in the small hours of the night, there had been radio static chatter from dispatch and a couple cops on graveyard duty.  But now.  Nothing.  No sounds of panic heading towards him to stop him escaping.  Nothing.  Nothing but the growing heaviness of that silence.

Tightening his sweating palm on the familiar handle of his switch blade, Ben stepped out of the cell and made his way to see what had happened to the people.  Turning the corner, Ben’s brain shut down and flashed him back to the motel room, walking up to the bed where his mother’s body had been gutted open, her insides no longer where they were meant to be, and that red.  Red everywhere.

“Blood,” Ben whispered.  The bullpen had been impeccably clean the day before.  And now, it was smeared in the blood and viscera of his mother.  Feeling his insides writhe in unacknowledged horror, he moved into the room proper and looked down at his feet.  His mother’s fixed and unseeing eyes were gazing off to the side.   His mother?

Ben blinked and he recognized the cop-lady, her face the only thing that made any sense in the horrible mess around him.  He stepped further into the room, moving slowly, time coming to a standstill.  Bits and pieces of human flesh were everywhere like someone had forgotten to put the lid on a blender.  The floor, ceiling and walls were splotched; no desk, lamp or computer monitor was spared.  The room was painted in the cops’ leftovers.  How could these people even contain all this blood?  The lingering metallic smell got caught in the back of his throat, and the pungent smell of piss and shit kept assaulting his nose.  A strained gurgle caught Ben’s ear and he looked down at the torso struggling to speak or breathe through the blood clogging up its throat.  The entire lower body was just…  gone, the torso ending in a torn up mess of shredded skin, organs and the tip of the broken off spinal cord just pushing out at the bottom.

Was this shit real?  It couldn’t be.  It had to be some sort of super Hi-Def VR shit.  He spun around, looking for something that made sense, because none of this should be here, had he fallen asleep?  Was he dreaming?

 _Flamingo_.

Ben stopped in his turning, what was that?  He turned back at the blood streaked wall and frowned.  There was something calculated about the spatter there, something deliberate.  He moved closer, tilting his head to the side and he saw it.  They were letters.  Letters of smeared viscera.  _Flamingo Lounge._

What in Holy Hell was happening?  Ben’s mind scrambled at the nothing it kept producing.  Hell.  King of Hell. Had the man not promised revenge on Dean Winchester?  _I came to fetch you._   What the fuck had he meant by that?  If he was there to get him, why leave him there?  And suddenly, he understood: a message written in blood for his blood lust.  Shock turned to rage and Ben knew suddenly that the man had done this, and he had left him the message on the wall to get him where he needed to be to avenge his mother’s death.  To finish this once and for all!

Without another look to spare for the massacre around him, Ben made his way to the precinct doors and pushed on the metal bar, stepping out into the rainy day.  Ben found a car sitting right outside with the engine running.  A quick look inside revealed that there was no one: another offering from the King of Hell.  He hurried around the front end and slipped into the seat.  He jammed the shifter into drive and he squealed the tires turning the car around and out of the visitors’ parking area.

 


	14. Hair of the Dog

_Heart breaker, soul shaker_

_I’ve been told about you_

_Steamroller, midnight stroller_

_What they’ve been saying must be true_

_…_

_Time’s come to pay your dues._

_Now you’re messing with a son of a bitch._

 

“I don’t know about this Sam.”

Delilah stared out through the streaked windshield at the generic building with no particularly striking features on the rain-soaked street.  The clouds had thickened as they had driven out of Beulah and headed east and the street was wrapped in dark blue filtered light, making everything dark and dank and forbidding.  Sam turned to look at her from the passenger’s seat.  He had a frown on his face.  She couldn’t stand having him look at her like she was a broken doll.  She leaned her head forward just enough for her long hair to fall between them like a curtain.  She swallowed with difficulty, her mouth back to being cotton dry, her tongue still swollen and her throat sore from screaming and unfriendly hands.  Her brain was pounding against the inside of her skull, trying its best to break out.

Try as she could to convince herself of the absolute necessity to get out of the car and walk into that building, she found herself paralyzed.  She knew they had to get Dean.  She understood everything that was at stake, not least of which Sam’s happiness, but it also meant facing the monster again.  The pain of the past six weeks had faded a little when she and Jody had been hunting the Wendigo – God… was that just last week? – but the scars of her misery and shame had been ripped open again when Dean had shown up, and they split a little more with every new thing she learned about him.

She gazed out the side window.  She had almost succeeded in convincing herself that what they were hunting was no more than another monster, but then her eyes landed on the dark, achingly familiar shape of the Impala parked down the side alley of the Flamingo Lounge, her paint pearled with the rain but otherwise she was unchanged, like a relic of the past.  And suddenly she was choking on suppressed sobs.  Like he had been watching her, waiting for his cue, Sam’s hand covered hers in her lap, his long fingers curling tight around them and squeezing comfort into her.  She wanted nothing more than to let him soothe her, she wanted him to take care of her, tell her everything would be fine – he would hold her in his arms and chase the cold from around her heart.

No.  She was not going to let this – let that fucking shit Dean – turn her into a weak, crying fuck up.  She was a fucking badass.  Delilah poked at her anger, letting it chase away the scared little girl that needed to be propped up.  She could feel the cold numbness squeeze her heart even as she felt the hot rage boil away in her core, fueling her.  She felt energized, focused.  She turned to look at Sam and she watched as the concern in his face melted to sadness and then transformed into determinedness.  It was time.

Not another word was exchanged between them.  They had already discussed the plan.  Delilah knew what Sam wanted her to do… and she knew what she might end up having to do.  It was time to put down this mad dog.  Delilah pushed open the car door and stepped out, the rain instantly soaking through her shirt.  She watched Sam make his way to the trunk where he had put their bags.  When his head disappeared behind the open lid, she ducked into the back seat and rummaged through her sling bag.  She quickly switched out the clip in her gun, pausing a half second, staring at the star carved into the tip of the first bullet in the magazine before ramming it in place and returning the gun to its holster on the back of her belt.  She did nothing to conceal the weapon, letting the handle stand out unfettered by a concealing shirt tail.  She straightened up at the same time as Sam who closed the lid on the trunk again, a grim look on his face.  He slipped something metallic in his coat pocket and his flask of holy water into the inside panel pocket.

Delilah turned her head away.  Holy water and magical handcuffs: might as well be going after an angry bear with a taser.  An angry bear that knew they were coming.  There was no such thing as a surprise attack here, Crowley told them where to find Dean.  Whether they believed his bullshit excuse for selling out his buddy or not, they had to assume the demon had also told Dean they would be coming for him.

Delilah moved away from the car, adjusting her angel blade in her belt, and headed for the side alley and the back door.  Sam caught up to her quickly and slipped something cold and round in her right hand.  She looked down to see the iron handcuffs; spell work etched into the metal of both cuffs, a slightly longer chain than the standard police issue cuffs joining them.  She felt like telling Sam that she had no plans on getting that close to his brother, but she didn’t want to distract him from his own plan, after all, he was the one walking right in to face him.  She stuck the cuffs into the back pocket of her jeans and turned back around, losing sight of Sam around the corner.

Equal parts dread and nostalgia hit her full force, accompanied by another painful throb of her head as she moved around the parked black car and beyond it into a fenced off courtyard: the back wall of the building covered in bright graffiti, a large sign announcing she had found the less than savoury back door to the Flamingo Lounge, an overflowing blue dumpster, black garbage bags on the ground beside it, empty and stacked wooden pallets, a rusting car near the edge of the fence.  If Sam managed to flush him out this way, there would be plenty of space and privacy for them to subdue him.  Another throb radiated through her skull and settled behind her eyes, making even the cloud-diffused daylight hard to take.  She rolled her stiff neck and made her way to the solid door in the wall, preparing to get into position and listen for Sam’s call for help.

As she moved beyond the blue dumpster, stars burst in front of her and she felt the pain in her knees, and the palms of her hands as they scraped against the wet pavement.  Realization dawned slowly on Delilah as she tried to push up from the ground.  Then the impact of the blow to the back of her head finally registered with her pain sensors and she groaned from the intensity.  She tried to push through it to get back up to her feet, aware that something had caused her to fall, and that something was probably not lurking too far away, but her pain induced slowness had left her at her attacker’s mercy, and she found her cheek pressed against the pavement as her arms were pulled out from under her and yanked backwards.  Something cold clamped around each of her wrists, her vision went all blurry and dull, her surroundings blended together like washed out watercolour.  She just saw the ratty scuffed sneakers and torn jean cuffs swim into view momentarily as she tried to lift her head from the ground, before the electric bolt misfired in her brain and forced her head down again.

 _Fuck_.

 

Ben pushed open the back door of the Flamingo Lounge not feeling any remorse at all about leaving the psycho bitch tied up in a dank alley.  He could feel excitement and fear mingling together, making his heart pound inside his chest and slicking his palms with sweat.  The door closed behind him with a clunk of the metal bolt, leaving him in semi-darkness at the end of a poorly lit hallway.  Knife in hand, he made his way down the narrow space towards the muffled sound of voices.  Ben’s focus was total.  He had developed a hyper-awareness of what was ahead, his senses blocking out all distractions from his goal, his purpose.  He twirled the handle of the knife, his arms to his sides, taking careful steps.

“Did you ever stop to think that if I wanted to be cured, I wouldn’t have bailed?”

The voice resonated in Ben ears, familiar and unknown all at once.  The conversation continued without him as he felt himself tremble with forgotten emotion.  He finally reached the end of the hallway and took a step into the larger room.  He had a vague sense of the décor, most of the light coming in from the large windows off to the side, rain still pattering against them, loud like parade drums in his ears as his eyes landed on the two men standing in the room.  He recognized and dismissed Sam right away, his height and build impossible to mistake for anyone else, and turned his focus on the other one.  Though he had his back turned, Ben felt the shadow of recognition swoop over him.  It went far beyond recognizing him from a picture.  It was more like déjà vu, not quite able to put his finger on where he had seen him before, but knowing without a doubt that he had.

The man was leaning against the bar casually, holding a drink in his hand like he was having the most normal and easy-going conversation.  Judging from Sam’s face though, it really wasn’t the case.  Finally, words began to register in his mind.

“I’m doing all I can not to come over there and rip your throat out… with my teeth.  I’m giving you a chance, Sam.  You should take it.”

“I’m gonna have to pass.”

“What about whoever’s lurking back there?  You ready to watch them die because you’re too stupid, stubborn to quit?”

Ben startled, but Sam’s focus suddenly shifted right to him as he barked, “Get out of here, Delilah!  Run!”

Is the fuck head mental?  Ben almost wanted to turn around and see if the psycho girlfriend was creeping up on him, but then Dean spoke again, “Nice try, Sam.  That’s not Lilah.  So who’s our mystery guest today, then?”

He turned around and Ben froze, like a deer stuck in high beams.  As much as he had thought he was ready to meet the man he was so hellbent on killing, he couldn’t process the wave of emotions that accompanied actually being face-to-face with him.  Dean’s eyes slowly scanned him from head to toe, a thoughtful look on his face.  If he was surprised to see him, like Sam had been a few days before, he hid it well, his face neutral, the tilt of his head betraying a slight curiosity but no more.  Is it possible that he didn’t recognize him?

Some movement behind Dean caught his attention, and Ben’s eyes shifted to over his shoulder.  Sam had barely taken a step towards Dean, that the brother turned around, quick as a striking cobra, and grabbed him.

“Really, Sam?  Trying to sneak up on me?  That’s hardly fair!” Dean finished with a growl as he pushed the taller man back with enough force to send him crashing into one of the flimsy tables scattered around the room.  It collapsed like crushed cardboard under his weight. “So, what’re you gonna do, Sammy?” asked Dean, as he took a slow step towards where his brother was slowly getting up from the ground.  “You gonna kill me?  ‘Cause I am not walking out that door with you…  I’m just not.”

Ben seized his chance, his muscles propelling him forward as he squeezed the blade in his hand, ready to pounce on his target and burry it deeply into his flesh.  He was just a step away when Dean turned around, Flash quick, and his hand connected with his shoulder and shoved him back, his momentum sweeping his feet from under him and making him land hard on his ass.

“Stop! Dean!” Sam shouted as his brother grabbed Ben’s shirt at the neck and yanked him forward.

“Why?” asked Dean, pausing for a moment, holding Ben half off the ground like he weighed no more than a sack of potatoes.

“This isn’t you.  Stop before you do something you’ll regret.”

“You don’t know what I’ve done.”

“I don’t care.  You’re my brother.  And I can’t let you kill him.”

What started off as a light chuckle turned into a full laugh as Dean shook his head.  “What’re you gonna do about it?” His voice was whisper quiet, a threat and a challenge.  Ben didn’t wait a second longer.  He raised his knife and brought it down on the hand and wrist holding him.  He felt the shock of the metal sinking into soft flesh and scraping against bone as he pulled himself out of the fingers’ grasp and scurried back up to his feet, panting.  Dean hardly seemed affected by the blade though.  He turned his annoyed glare on him, no trace of that fleeting laughter. “Fine.  You got my attention, kid.  I’ll never believe my dumbass brother intentionally brought a child to back him up.  So, what the fuck do you want?”

Ben straightened up, squaring back his shoulders as he looked Dean dead on.  He could feel the rage boiling away inside of him eclipsing any and all other emotions that had been fighting for dominance just before.  He felt focused, a handbreadth away from avenging his mother.

“I’m here to kill you.”

A second passed as Ben’s words dissipated into the room leaving behind only silence as Dean fixed him with his unwavering stare, no concern for his wounded hand.  Then, his face cracked another smile, bearing his teeth as his laughter filled the room again.

“Sam, what the hell is this?  Kid’s for real?” he asked, half turning towards his brother who was standing once again, watching the scene with wrinkled forehead.

“SHUT THE FUCK UP!  You killed my mother and now I’m gonna kill you!”  Ben’s voice was cracking from the rage, his throat instantly sore from screaming and yet Dean’s face didn’t lose the smile as he turned back towards Ben.

“I didn’t kill your fucking mom, kid.”

“You’re a killer!  A murderer!”

“Well yeah.  I sliced and diced more than my fair share of people over the years.  Doesn’t mean I killed your mom.  I have no problems killing you though, since you seem to have a death wish —”

“DEAN!” Sam tried to interrupt.

“So why don’t you just get the fuck out of here before I get bored with your childish shit.”

Ben could feel his anger flaring, making him see red.  “I’m not a fucking kid!  It’s your fucking fault she’s dead, and now you’re gonna die too, you evil asshole!”

“Alright.  Well, come on then.”

With a cry, Ben charged at Dean with his knife, battle rage filling him and giving him strength.  Dean deflected the blow easily, side stepping out of the way as Ben tried to recover his balance.  He spun around, swinging his blade arm at where he figured Dean would be standing, and he felt the pain radiate in his elbow as Dean’s hands connected to it and his wrist before his fingers closed and he yanked him around and off balance with enough strength to make him feel like his arm was going to pop out of his shoulder socket.  He dropped his knife as he landed on the ground with a groan, barely getting his hands under him to stop his face colliding with the hardwood.

“Dean, stop.”

“Oh, come on Sam!  If you want me to stop, then step the fuck up.  Otherwise, get the hell out of the way.”

Ben jumped to his feet while Dean had his attention on his brother, and he threw a punch at the man’s face.  Distracted or not, he was still too quick and easily dodged the hit.  Ben followed up with another punch, this time at his gut, but Dean knocked his hand away before it could connect with his body.  Ben unleashed a volley of hits and kicks, just trying all he could to land a blow, screaming his frustration when every attempt was easily deflected by Dean, who dared to look like he was enjoying himself, a wide smile on his face the whole time.  Out of nowhere, Ben felt his legs give out and he saw stars as he crumpled to the ground, completely disoriented.

He saw Dean’s boot seconds before the man swung his foot into his stomach.  The pain of the impact radiated through Ben as he coughed and sputtered trying to get his breath back.  He looked up at Dean standing over him, the smile gone from his face as he surveyed him like an ant.

“I don’t know what kind of bullshit story you made up in your head about me, but I dropped you and your mom from my life ‘cause I was tired of the fucking burden.  Lisa got herself killed and you wanna aim your anger at someone, I get it, but if you were trying to accomplish anything other than get a beating, you failed.  You’re nothing but a dumb brat.  You didn’t have what it takes to live this life then… and you definitely don’t have it now.  Go back to your video games and comic books.”

Dean cut off his speech as Sam came into view again, holding a pair of handcuffs.  Murder in his eyes, Dean turned away from Ben and grabbed his brother by the shirt, yanking him down as he drove his knee into his stomach.  He shoved him out of Ben’s field of vision and all he could hear as he tried and failed to take a deep breath, was the sound of grunts of pain and splintering wood.

Ben managed to roll to the side and sit up just as he heard another crash, this time it was accompanied by discordant twangs that echoed in the room and Ben saw Sam’s body on the ground beside the piano that had been knocked sideways, one of the legs giving under the impact.  Dean was standing over him, like he was deciding whether or not to kill him.

This was his chance.  He’d get him this time.  Just had to be quick.  Ben jerked himself to his feet, grabbing his knife from the ground before charging once again at Dean’s turned back.  One more step and he would have him, but again, too quick, Dean turned around and grabbed Ben like it was the WWE and slammed him down on the ground on his side.  He coughed and sputtered, the breath knocked out yet again, this time a sharp pain jabbed at his chest and he figured he had cracked a rib or two as he rolled onto his back, trying to relieve the pressure on his lungs.

Dean leaned down over him, the smug look back on his face.  “What did you think was gonna happen here?  Did you really think you could come in here, no plan, just a sad sack of teenage angst spewing accusations and expect me to roll over for you?”

“Going to avenge her,” Ben choked out between coughs.

“Oh, God!  That just… that makes me sad.  This ain’t no fucking comic book or movie fairy tale.  In this world?  Dumb fucking kids get killed by monsters, just like their stupid mothers.”

Ben’s arm swung up and the blade dug into skin again, this time carving up Dean’s face.  He flinched back with a grunt and Ben sat up, aiming his next thrust for his stomach.  Dean was back in a flash and grabbed his wrist, his other hand wrapping around his throat.  He squeezed and lifted him off the ground. Ben felt the pain of his entire weight on his neck as his fingers pressed into his tendons, muscles and windpipe, cutting off his air supply.  Ben felt frail suddenly, images of him broken and paralyzed from snapped vertebrae, flashing in his mind.  He scrambled at the hand as he felt himself slammed against the counter top of the bar.  He tried to struggle against the stronger man, but Dean immobilized him and stared right into his eyes.  They were cold, and empty and they filled Ben with dread that left him feeling his mortality in a way he had never felt, even in the middle of an ass kicking by the other delinquent boys in Detroit.

“You have no idea what you walked into do you?”

Ben’s wide eyes focused on the thin red line, puckered and torn, on Dean’s cheek where he had slashed him.  There was no blood coming from that cut, he realized with horror.  As he stared at it, unable to look away, the skin drew together on its own, the line getting thinner and lighter until there was no trace of it to mar the skin.  When Ben looked up from the healed skin, it was to find that Dean’s previously clear eyes had gone completely black, no white cornea at all, just smooth black eyes.

“What, in holy fuck are you?” Ben whispered the words, feeling the acid churning in his stomach and trying to make its way up his terrified throat.

“I’m the boogeyman, Ben.  And I’m going to kill you.”

Ben had never been so terrified in his life.  He looked into the monster’s hypnotizing eyes, unable to look away, unable to raise a hand to stop him as he squeezed his throat harder cutting off what little breath he’d been able to take just before.  Ben’s lungs were burning within seconds, reminding him of the time he’d gotten his foot caught in some reeds at the lake where he’d gone on vacation with his mom as a kid.  He was choking now, unable to breathe though the room around him was full of oxygen.  He gulped at it reflexively, the alcohol saturated air particles unable to get passed Dean’s fingers, and his oxygen deprived brain started spinning the ceiling and bar around him.

Just when he thought he was going to pass out, Dean let up, transferring his clenching hand to his shirt instead.  Ben barely got a thankful breath in before Dean’s fist slammed into his face knocking his head back against the bartop.  Stars burst from behind his eyes and warm blood gushed from his nose and into his mouth.  Dean drew him close again, lifting him away from the bar and holding him up by his ripping clothes. Ben couldn’t get his legs under him to support him, the limbs not responding.  Dean’s fist slammed into his face again, sending his head rocking back again nearly snapping his neck.  His whole body had gone slack, like nothing but rubber was holding his bones together and all he could do was take blow after blow to his face.  With each hit, something new broke; Ben could hear the cracks more than feel them, his whole face gone numb from the swelling.

Ben’s shirt ripped and he went crashing to the ground his head bouncing off the floor like a tethered soccer ball.  Dean crouched down and grabbed a handful of his hair bringing him close to his face.  He could barely breathe, no air going in through his nose and blood trickling down his throat.  This was it.  The miserable, useless ending to his pathetic life.  There would be no one to mourn him, or his mother.  All of it would be swept under a rug and forgotten.  Dean pulled something from behind him and Ben just got a glimpse of the huge, jagged blade before it disappeared under his chin and he felt the oddly warm edge of it against his neck.  And he paused.  Ben could barely see through his swollen eye, but what he could see of Dean’s face, confused him.  Why would the self-proclaimed monster hesitate?  Why delay the inevitable, unless he was stretching it out, torturing him for his personal enjoyment?

“Just… kill… me,” Ben managed to gurgle.

Endless seconds ticked by in the bubble wrapped isolation of their encounter, and with each passing moment, Ben felt like he was going to lose it.  He could feel the tremor in his lip starting and he knew he would not be able to stop the childish blubber.

“Today’s your lucky day, kid.  Not much in the killing mood.”

Dean let go of his hair and straightened up as Ben fell back to the floor.  He managed to get his elbows under him before his head smashed against the hard floor again.  He stared up at Dean in confusion, hardly able to get his bruised mind to function properly.  One thing registered though, and he wasn’t going to wait around for Dean to change his mind.  He managed to get his legs moving and he pushed his feet against the wooden floor, scrabbling away.  For a moment, Dean watched him but then out from behind him, Sam appeared and doused him in a clear liquid from a flask.  Ben’s shoulders hit the wall and he could go no farther.  He watched as the liquid sizzled and evaporated like water touching a hot grill, and Dean screamed in pain.  He turned around, his face twisted in anger as he lunged for his brother.

Ben startled when the gun shot rang out in the room from just beside him.  Sam had ducked down too, as though that would give him cover from a flying bullet.  Dean’s only reaction had been to stop his advance on his brother.

 

Delilah held the gun steady in her hand, the smoking barrel still aimed at Dean, ready to take another shot if she needed to, her angel blade was in her other hand ready to plunge if he charged at her.  Sam was staring at her, his eyes wide and his head shaking slowly left-to-right.

Dean.  Her eyes were pulled back to him like she had no choice but to look at the man who haunted her thoughts and stalked her nightmares.  They had found him.  He was right there.  They had him.

He turned his shoulders towards her.  His eyes were filled with unspoken violence as they landed on her standing at the mouth of the hallway that led to the back door and the courtyard where Ben had left her hog tied.  Lucky for her, the kid didn’t think that she’d have the damn key to her own fucking cuffs.  She barely spared the battered kid a glance as she took a step into the room.  Dean’s face cracked into a smile as he reached his arm behind his right shoulder and brought it back around to study the blood on his finger tip.

“Damnit, Lilah.  That’s my favourite shirt.”  Of course, he had to be wearing the damn red shirt.  She had too many memories of that very shirt for it to pass unnoticed, but she tried to ignore it.  “But other than destroying my shirt,” he continued in his oddly unaffected tone, just like the morning he had caught up to her in Sioux Falls; his voice was flat, bored, empty, “I gotta say, baby, you’re way off your mark.  My heart’s over here.”

He tapped the left side of his chest like a teacher explaining left and right for the ten thousandth time.

“I wasn’t aiming for you heart, Dean.  Just had to make sure the bullet didn’t go right through you.”

“I’m a demon.  What the fuck do you expect to do with a fucking bullet?”

“Devil’s trap bullets, fucktard.”

Dean’s eyes widened suddenly, and he looked down at his feet.  He was clearly trying to move his legs, but the trap held: Dean was immobilized.  He laughed, baring his teeth in a smile that definitely didn’t reach his eyes.  “That was a pretty risky move.  What if it didn’t work, huh?  Or worse.  What if it killed me?”  The corner of his mouth stretched wickedly.

Satisfied, Delilah dropped her stance and put the gun away in its holster.  “That would have made my life much easier.  Unlike Sam, I don’t give a shit if we have to kill you.  But since it did work, I guess I get to deal with you afterall.”

Taking advantage of the distraction, Sam grabbed hold of Dean’s outstretched wrist and snapped the cuff around it.  With a growl, Dean shifted his attention back his brother and raised his other hand to fend him off.  Sam wrapped the other cuff around it and yanked his hands down.  Dean yelled again, baring his teeth at his brother.  “Stop!” Sam yelled, “It’s over!  It’s over, Dean.”

Dean had murder in his eyes as he looked between each of them and fell into a sullen silent.

Delilah gave Sam a quick look over, noticing the fresh bruises blooming on his face.  “You alright, Sam?”

“Yeah, I got him.  Check on Ben.”

Delilah put her angel blade away now that she was sure the threat was neutralized, and walked over to the bloody slumped shape on the ground.  She couldn’t help but notice the similarity in the bruise patterns between the kid and the asshole Dean had beat up a few nights before.  She crouched down in front of him, and he flinched away, raising his arms defensively.

“Quit squirming, I’m not gonna hurt you.”  The fight went out of him, his arms slowly dropping like he just couldn’t hold them up anymore.  She pushed up under his chin and turned his face towards the light.  “Dean didn’t hold back much, did he?”

She stood up again and made her way behind the bar, sparing a glance at Sam who was removing the First Blade from where it was tucked in Dean’s belt.  She wrapped some ice in a clean cloth and went back to Ben, happy to let Sam take care of his brother, happy that she didn’t have to get too close to him.  She wasn’t ready for that yet.  She held the ice to Ben’s face, and guided his left hand to hold it there himself.

“Why,” he started, but then was seized by a coughing fit that ended with him spitting blood on the ground beside them.  Wheezing, he looked at her again, his hands dropped back down to his legs, clearly exhausted.  “Why are you helping me?”

Delilah looked into his right unswollen eye, noting the rich brown iris, and she suddenly felt a pang of empathy for the poor kid. She took the cloth wrapped ice from him and held it gently against his face again.  “Because, I’ve been there.”


	15. This Ain't the Summer of Love

_This ain't the garden of Eden_

_There ain't no angels above_

_And things ain't like what they used to be_

_And this ain't the summer of love_

With an ungainly wobble resulting in a cry and a near overbalancing, Delilah made her way out of the lounge and into the closed courtyard, Ben’s arm slung across her shoulders.  She felt like she was trying to drag a hundred-pound sack of potatoes, though if she added a hat and some straw tufts to the boy, it would probably look more like she was dancing with a scarecrow.

Ahead of them, Sam had already reached the parked Impala and was unceremoniously shoving his brother into the back seat.  Dean glanced back her way, a knowing smile on his lips, before his head disappeared into the car.  She shivered.  The adrenaline was slowly seeping from her system, the high from achieving what she and Sam had set out to do incredibly short-lived, and her headache was back full force.  Having Ben’s gangly, underfed, teenage body hanging from her shoulders and pulling at her hair and neck was definitely not helping.  Not for the first time in her life, Delilah wished she’d grown an extra six inches.

“I’m not getting in there with that thing.”

She couldn’t fault Ben for thinking that way, though she was surprised he was still as lucid as he was.  From the look of his face, and the clotted blood in his hair, it would be a miracle if he didn’t have a concussion.  Not to mention his seemingly easy acceptance of the existence of demons, but maybe that had something to do with the erased memories.  Regardless, this was no place for him.

“Don’t worry, kid.  I’m gonna drop you off at the hospital.  You’re getting off this crazy ride.”

“No!”  Ben let out a groan as he tried to push away from her.  It stopped them both completely as Delilah tried to recover from his sudden movement without toppling over from the shifted weight.

“Whoa!  Don’t do that, I’m not exactly in mint condition here.  If you don’t want to end up with both of us on the ground, you have to stop squirming.”

“No hospital,” she heard him push through grinding teeth.

They finally reached Delilah’s rental and she carefully leaned him up against the back passenger door.  She paused to look up at his face.  In that moment, though his lanky frame made him look like he was towering over her, she felt like she was looking into the face, mangled and swollen, of a terrified child.  What had him so spooked?  Talk about demons, the kids couldn’t care less, mention a hospital and instant panic.

“We don’t have a choice here.  Have you seen your face?  Not to mention those busted ribs.  You need medical attention.”

“I can’t.  The cops are after me.  Drop me at a hospital and you might as well put me behind bars for the rest of my life.”  He groaned, holding his side and Delilah put the ice back against his face, her lips pursed.

“Kid…”

“Stop calling me that,” he growled at her.  She had to admire his seemingly inexhaustible supply of anger, considering the state of him.

She shook her head.  “Ben.  I don’t know what you expect me to do here.”

With a grim, lopsided tightening of his lips, he fixed her with his good eye.  She was enthralled by his focused determination.  She could not look away, even as her head gave another painful throb.  Then he broke the eye contact, turning his head away.  He managed to jerk the door open and drop into the passenger’s seat with another groan.  Delilah closed the door on him when his foot was settled in the footwell, and she rubbed at her tired eyes.

She heard the scuff of a foot against the pavement, and she startled around only to find that Sam had walked over to her.

“Everything alright?”

She couldn’t stop herself from looking beyond him to the parked car holding Dean.  She was reassured and unsettled to see him sitting quietly in the backseat of his own car, looking out the side window in affected disinterest.  She turned back to look up at Sam’s face, craning her head back slightly to the side to avoid the sharper needle jabs to her brain.  He hadn’t escaped unscathed either, though his bruises were nothing compared to the swollen cheek and eye of the teenager in the car.  Her hand was halfway to his face before she caught herself and pulled away, squeezing her fingers into a tight fist.

Suddenly materializing out of the air above the sidewalk near the lounge, Crowley took a step towards them.  Sam and Delilah startled around to watch him as he leaned over just enough to see the seething demon glaring out at him through the window.

“I see you’ve managed to catch him.  And without any outstanding scratches on you.  Well, most of you,” he said turning to look at her and Sam where they stood beside the car and then cocking his head sideways to look beyond her.  Delilah just caught movement inside the rental, and she raised her hand to signal Ben to stay in the car.  She and Sam walked up to the black suited Crowley, alert in case of mischief on the King of Hell’s part.

Delilah settled her left hand on the handle of her angel blade at her belt.  Crowley glanced down at it, acknowledging the threat with an unconcerned twitch of his lips.  “I’m sure the violence won’t be necessary.  Assuming you’re holding up your share of the deal.  One deranged, out-of-control demon for the First Blade.  You have your demon, I wish you years of joy, honestly… now where’s my Blade?”

Sam pulled the bone blade from where he had tucked it in his belt for convenience.  He had a frown on his face, his lips pursed and his jaw twitching, clear signs that he was less than certain about handing the powerful weapon over to the two-faced demon.  Delilah had her reservations too.  The only comfort she could draw from it was that without the Mark of Cain, the blade was useless, and as long as they had Dean, Crowley wouldn’t be able to use it.  Part of her was relieved too, that the responsibility of keeping the blade away from Dean would not be resting on her, or Sam, or their ability to hide the weapon from Dean somehow.  Considering how easily he had gotten it back from them last time they had managed to disarm him, this wasn’t the worst idea in the world.

Crowley extended his hand towards Sam, his eyes on the blade.  “Pleasure doing business with you.”

Sam hesitated, keeping the fingers of his left hand wrapped tightly around the handle.  “What’re you going to do with it?”

Crowley rolled his eyes and tucked his hand back into his pants pocket.  “Toss it into a volcano, leave it on the moon…I’ll get creative.”

Movement coming from the Impala caught Delilah’s eye and she focused on Dean who was watching all of them.  Delilah wondered if his senses had been boosted by being a demon, could he hear what they were saying?  Or was he just glaring at them all out of disdain?

Crowley went on.  “Believe me.  I don’t want Dean getting his hands on the precious any more than you do.  Your brother knows I ratted.  Tends to hold a grudge. I don’t want to get… boned,” he finished with a coy smile as he held his hand out towards Sam again.

Delilah could only see the exchange out of the corner of her eye, her attention on Dean and unable to tear away.  He was fixing Crowley with such an expression of hate, she half expected him to spontaneously combust.  And then, he turned his baleful glare onto her and a chill crept down her spine and made her whole body tingle with awareness; it was like looking into the eyes of the grim reaper, like Dean had the ultimate say in whether she should live or die, and right now, he was leaning towards the latter.

“This doesn’t make us square.” Sam’s stern voice snapped her out of her hypnosis, and she turned away from Dean’s soul consuming stare.  “I see you again…”

“Oh, stop it, Samantha,” Crowley said, his voice bedroom soft, a smile pulling at his lips, “No one likes a tease.”

Without a sound, where Crowley had been standing, the space was empty again and Delilah and Sam were on their own.  Sam took a deep breath, his chest rising and falling, the air whooshing out loudly from his nose.  Delilah looked up at him, trying to decipher the look on his face.  He looked worried, though which of the seemingly endless stream of actions and repercussions in particular had him worried, she couldn’t even begin to guess; they had relinquished to Crowley a weapon of immense power with only his word that it would be hidden away out of reach of anybody able to wield it; and they had captured Dean without any particular plan for what to do with him beyond getting him home to the bunker.

Delilah crossed her arms over her chest and glanced back at the teenager sitting in her rental with the seat angled back and the ice against his face.  And she had somehow inherited responsibility for a broken kid with homicidal tendencies.  She should just drop him off at the nearest hospital, what did she care if the cops were going to lock him up?

“What am I supposed to do about him, Sam?”

“I don’t know.  To be honest, I’m not quite sure what to do with Dean either.”

Delilah turned back to look at the Impala.  Dean had gone back to staring out the side window.  “You gonna be ok to drive back to Kansas with that… thing… in the backseat?”

“No matter what else he is, that’s my brother in there.  Besides, if he gets too annoying, I can always stick him in the trunk.”  Sam’s lips pulled into a tight humourless grimace, no doubt attempting to alleviate the tension, but it wasn’t working.  “As for Ben… Bring him back to the bunker.  I’ll call Cas.  Have him meet us.  We’ll need his help with Dean, so maybe he can fix up Ben too.”

“Alright,” Delilah said, laying a hand on Sam’s good arm and giving it a comforting squeeze.  “Be safe.”

As she dropped her hand, Sam’s arm curled around her and drew her in against him.  She just got her arms up over his shoulders as he held her tightly against him, pulling her up on the very tip of her toes, his face pressed against her shoulder.  “We did it, Delilah.”

She brought her hand up to rest against the back of his head, her fingers naturally tangling into his thick hair, and she felt the tingle at the back of her neck: she was being watched.  She turned her head slowly towards the quiet black car, and she wasn’t entirely surprised to meet Dean’s gaze.  The look on his face was terrifying, the relative darkness of the interior of the car adding a threatening shadow to his eyes.  “This isn’t over yet, Sam,” she whispered.

 

Delilah pulled up the rented Focus to her spot on the road just outside the bunker’s entrance and shut off the engine.  She dreaded what she would find inside, but it was a much different feeling than the one she’d experienced the last time she had parked out there.  Whereas then, she had been worried that she might find Sam’s body silently decomposing in a tomb of magical artefacts, now what she wanted to delay above all else was the inevitable confrontation with Dean.  She had managed to keep it together when they had captured him, mostly thanks to action and adrenaline, but this…  This felt like she was walking to the gallows… Only thing left to figure out, was who they’d be hanging.

Ben startled awake beside her, maybe he had felt the change in the car’s now still momentum, maybe his nightmares had woken him, either way she turned to look at him as he jerked and winced from his swollen and tightening skin.  He was undoubtedly also suffering the pain of abated adrenaline.  He had been silent nearly the whole twelve-hour drive, limiting his interactions to grunts and asking her to pull over so he could pee.  More than once Delilah gave a silent thanks that he had the equipment to pee standing up by the side of the road, she would not have wanted to answer questions in public about what had happened to his face…  and why he wasn’t in a hospital.   It was this concern that had her drive the whole way without stopping for anything more than the absolutely necessary gas-and-snacks stops, where she refilled on water to keep the slow-fading hang over at bay.

She had felt a pang of guilt turning onto the i-90 eastbound, thinking about Jody and Alex at home in Sioux Falls and worried about her.  She hadn’t wanted to call Jody and have to deflect questions she wouldn’t be able to answer with Ben’s ears listening in.  Then, she had turned southbound once more, and a few hours later they had crossed into Nebraska, and she put Jody out of her mind for the rest of the drive.

“What is this place?” asked the sullen teen as he pushed open the car door and stepped out onto the broken road clutching his side like his rib cage was going to pull apart if he didn’t hold it together.

“Um…  It’s a headquarters, kinda.  For a secret organization.”  She shook her head.

“Like Hydra?” Ben asked, sounding for the first time like a normal teenage boy should sound: curious and amused, maybe a little sarcastic.

Delilah laughed, remembering how she had called it the Batcave the first time.  “Yeah, except, not evil… mostly.”  Ben didn’t say anything more, lost in contemplation of the abandoned building on the hill above the entrance.  “Come on.  Let’s get you inside and you can wash up.”

She grabbed whatever bags were still in the car: hers and Sam’s luggage, his computer bag, hunting gear bag, and her messenger bag; and made her way to the stairs that led down to the door.  She was relieved that she didn’t have to drag Ben along too, she was already feeling like an overburdened horse.  He followed behind her, limping, wincing and wheezing, but managing to keep up, nonetheless.

She made it all the way down into the war room before Sam emerged from the left-hand hallway to meet her.

“Here, let me help,” he said quietly, taking some of the bags with his good arm, leaving her with just her things.  He turned to look at Ben who was slowly making his way down the stairs and into the bunker proper.  “How was your drive?”

Delilah thought about her long hours of contemplating what had happened and trying to sort and categorize it all while knowing deep down that the worst was yet to come, and she answered the only way she could: “It was fine.  You?”

“Yeah, same.  Fine.”

Delilah doubted that very much, but she accepted that he had done the same as her.  How do you even begin to wade through the sea of conflicting emotions and thoughts that were ready to surge through and cause mayhem on their psyche?  Best to stick to convenient lies.

“Is Dean… ?”

“Um, yeah.  He’s chained up in the dungeon.”  Sam visibly swallowed, a deep frown on his face.  “Cas says he’s going to try and get here as soon as he can.”

“Good.  That’s good.  I was thinking, in the meantime, we can set Ben up in Kevin’s old room.”

“Yeah.  I think that’d be best.”

“Alright, I’ll get him settled in.  Why don’t you get a pot of coffee going and we can look at what comes next.”

“You don’t want to sleep for a bit?  Once we get started, there might not be a chance.”

Ben wandered around the edges of the room, his head turning this way and that, his wonder overcoming his pain enough to let him look with barely a wince.  Delilah watched him a moment, then answered: “I don’t think I could sleep if I wanted to, Sam.  This is all so fucked up.  I can barely wrap my head around it all.”

“Oh?  Let’s see…  I’ve got my brother, who’s a demon, locked away in the dungeon…  His estranged, semi-adopted son, whose memory was wiped, wandering the room…  And all it took was a few threats and a deal with the King of Hell to make it all possible…  Nope.  Seems pretty standard to me.”

For a moment, Delilah was shocked at how blasé Sam was about the whole thing, until she realized he was teasing her.  She punched him in the left arm, with a “Jackass,” and grabbed her bags again.  “Give me half an hour and I’ll meet you back here for the finale.  And there better be coffee.  Come on, Ben.”

She led him out through the left-hand hallway and down the steps to the sub-floor.  She avoided looking down the side hallway that led to the storage rooms, and the hidden dungeon, and kept walking on turning one corner and then another and then stopping in front of a closed door marked 18.  She pushed it open and flicked on the light switch, half expecting to find the same mess of boxes and books that had been there last time she had set foot in the room, right after Kevin’s death.

She was relieved to find that at some point, one of the Winchesters had picked up everything that had been left behind and returned the room to a tidy, if a little dusty, condition.

“You can set up in here until Castiel gets here.”

Delilah moved into the room, heading straight for the dresser.  She opened the top drawer and found that whoever had tidied the room, had left Kevin’s clothes.  Ben certainly was taller than Kevin, but he was so skinny she figured the clothes would fit him fine.  Delilah reached in and pulled out a plain T-shirt and a pair of lounging pants.  She dropped them onto the bed and turned around quickly, bustling around the room and around Ben, who was just standing by the door looking lost again.  Within a couple minutes, she had a towel, some face cloths and a Men of Letters robe all set out on the foot of the bed.

“Sam’s room is in the next hallway, #21.  The washroom is down the hall to the end and then right.  Keep going until you find it.  There’s showers too if you want.”  Delilah headed for the door, ready to wash up and get into some fresh clothes herself now that the kid was all set.  She turned around on the threshold, looking back at Ben who was testing out the mattress, his long legs hanging over the side.  “Don’t wander around too much.  This place is bigger than it looks and some of the stuff we keep here can be pretty dangerous.”  Ben didn’t seem to react to what she said, and Delilah wondered if he cared.  _Whatever_ , she thought with an annoyed sigh.  She had more pressing matters to worry about than some sullen, self-entitled, asshole teenager.

She grabbed the handle on the door and pulled it closed behind her as she left to continue her preparations.  She made her way to the other side of the bunker, up the stairs and around the back end of the library.  She stopped in the laundry room and dumped the entire contents of her travel bag in the washing machine, not bothering to sort out what was ruined and torn from what was simply dirty.  Slamming the machine’s door closed, she headed across the hall and into the shower room, quickly stripping out of her jeans and shirt and grabbing a towel from the folded pile in the linen cupboard.

Hardly paying attention to what she was doing, concentrating on the sound of the water falling from the showerhead, Delilah scrubbed away the grime from the previous night and her half-day of driving and shut off the shower again.  She paused for a moment, listening to the quiet hum of the bunker, no trace left of that eerie emptiness she had felt a few days before when she had come looking for Sam.  Feeling the cold on her skin, the room not having had time to warm up during her quick wash, Delilah shivered and grabbed the towel off the edge of the sink where she had left it.  She dried herself hurriedly and then wrapped the grey fabric around herself.  Across the hall again, she dumped the last of her clothes in the still whirring washing machine, grabbed her bags from the floor and headed back out and down the hall.

Face-to-face with door number eight, Delilah stopped in her tracks.  She didn’t want to go in there, she realized.  Had it been tidied up as well, like Kevin’s room?  All traces of her erased?  She took a deep breath and turned the handle.

The room was exactly as she had left it last time she had been there, including the wrinkle in her bed sheets from where she had piled her bags as she packed away the things she had decided to bring with her.  She had had to travel light, considering she was hitchhiking, and so all her books were still there, lining the recessed shelf above the bed – were they waiting her return, these old friends of her past self?  She put her bags down gently on the table off to the side, and shut the door behind her.

Delilah looked around the room, feeling both its familiarity and strangeness at once.  This had been her room, these things were hers she knew, and yet.  Delilah’s gaze moved around the room, taking in the relics of her past.  Those books had belonged to another her, another version of Delilah McAllister, the one who worked in an office building in Topeka doing data entry.  Her gaze landed on the picture of her mother on the bedside table and she picked it up carefully.  Though she remembered her mother, remembered her life in Cimarron before the accident, it felt like she was remembering a familiar movie, instead of remembering her own childhood.  That little girl, her mother, both were strangers to her, the same as the teen from Kansas City, and that girl from Topeka.

Who had she become now?  Was she still the sad, destroyed girl who had spent the last month and a half in a state of semi-permanent sleep-walking in Sioux Falls?  She didn’t know anymore.  She felt like an off-air radio station, all static and white noise, just waiting for the next DJ to fill the booth and start the next show.

Delilah’s eyes landed on the white teddy bear holding the red heart, sitting so innocently on her bedside table.  She reached out and picked it up, feeling the cheap polyester of the shimmery fake fur.  _Be Mine_ , the heart said.  Though she could remember that morning, so long ago, when she had found the teddy bear in her bed, left there by Dean, and how happy she had felt, then, Delilah now felt detached from it.  All she could see now, in the teddy’s stitched black eyes, was the monster.  She had meant nothing to him, and so those feelings she had felt were all lies.  She had been betrayed by her own stupid heart.

Delilah didn’t even have a tear left for that naïve girl who had believed the lies of the monster who had played her for a fool.  She held out her arm, releasing the totem of her gullibility, and let it fall into the garbage can by her bedside, where it belonged.  She quickly dressed after that, picking from the clothes she had left behind, and then left the room.  The time had come to discuss how exactly you cured a demon.

She made her way towards the kitchen, being very careful to go around and avoid the other room in her hallway.  Her nose was greeted by the welcome smell of freshly brewed coffee as she stepped through the kitchen doorway.  She made a beeline for the breakfast bar and poured herself a cup, dumping heaping spoonfuls of sugar into the dark liquid.  The first sip seared her throat, but she didn’t care, she imagined that she could feel the caffeine and the sugar entering her bloodstream and sparking to life tired neurons and numbed out nerves.  Invigorated, Delilah downed the rest of the cup and poured herself another before heading out to meet Sam in the library.

She walked up the steps into the war room to find him sitting at his computer at the world table.  Delilah was surprised that he wasn’t surrounded by books and ingredients.  All the rituals she’d seen so far had required spells, or sigils, or at the very least words of power.  She could not believe that Sam had cured so many demons that he didn’t need some sort of reference manual.

“Hey, you ready to cure your dumbass brother?” Delilah asked, as she stepped up to where he had set up with his back to the library entrance.  She was suddenly afraid that she would lose her nerve if they waited too long.

“Yeah, just missing a couple things, but that shouldn’t take too long.”

“We’re not working in the library?”

“Um, no,” he said, glancing behind him quickly and suddenly looking embarrassed.

Delilah arched her eyebrows and shook her head.  “Kind of a mess, huh?  S’alright, we can clean it up later.  So tell me,” Delilah dragged a chair out from the table and rolled it over to sit down beside him.  She was going to ask him about the cure and how it worked, but then she saw what he was looking at on his screen.  “What’s that?”

“I’m looking up churches in the area.  I need to go to confession.”

Delilah blinked, not quite sure how to process that.  “I didn’t realize you were devout.”

Sam glanced at her a frown on his face, “I wouldn’t say devout.  I have faith, but with the kind of thing we do, going to church regularly isn’t all that high on my to do list.  In any event, this is for the ritual.  I’m gonna need to inject purified blood into Dean’s veins, and pure body and soul means pure blood.”

Delilah listened attentively as Sam described the demon curing ritual that he and Dean had found in the Men of Letters files back when they had been trying to close the gates of Hell.  Delilah remembered him telling her about how they had tried to cure Crowley, but then Dean had stopped him before he could finish.

“Didn’t that nearly kill you?”

“Um, no.  What nearly killed me was the trials.  Curing a demon was the third one, but I was already dying before I even started it.”

“Jesus, you’re a seriously hard-headed man, you know that?”

Sam chuckled, the sound not growing to a full on laugh, though he did smile.  “Yeah, I’ve been accused of that before.”

“Alright, so other than confessing my sins, what do I need to do for the ritual?”

Sam’s fleeting smile disappeared completely and his eyebrows settled into a frown.  “The cure is pretty much a one person ritual.”

“Okay, I’m good with that.  So what do I do?  Is there a chant; some sigils to draw; a potion to make?”

Sam didn’t answer.  Delilah turned to look at him again to find that he was staring at her with his deep frown.  She knew that look, whatever he was thinking about, he was torn.  Best to plow on through.  “I want to do this Sam.”

“You don’t have t…”

“I want to do it, for you.”  Sam shut his mouth quickly, looking away from her and rolling his shoulder, like his sling was bothering him.  “It’s not about the arm, dumbass.  I don’t think this cure is going to be all sunshine and rainbows.  And I’m guessing Dean’s not gonna like it.”

“He’s my brother,” Sam mumbled, looking conflicted again.

“Which is exactly why I think you shouldn’t have to do this.  Let me piss off the demonic son of a bitch in the dungeon.”  Before he could protest again, Delilah put her hand on his shoulder to draw his attention back to her.  As he turned to look, his jaw tight and his entire body tense, she looked him right in the eyes, the strange quality of the light in the war room turning them a shade of blue-grey-green that was absolutely stunning, and she smiled.  “Let me do this, Sam,” she added softly.

Sam gave her barely a nod, his face still set in hesitant doubt, and Delilah gave him a quick pat before dropping her hand and crossing her arms on the world table as she leaned in towards his computer screen.

“So!  Where am I going for confession?” she asked, trying to sound light and carefree though she really wasn’t looking forward to baring her soul to a stranger in a black cassock.

“Um, well, considering the nature of what we do, I was actually looking at this place.”

Sam turned the computer slightly so she could see the screen better.  The picture was old and looked like it belonged in a heritage museum.  It looked like an old building from the turn of the last century.  Most of the buildings back then were built from lumber, but some were put together from stone and mortar, and these were the ones that often were still standing guard over the past, like tired sentinels.  Growing up close to Dodge City, she was used to seeing old stone buildings.  Sometimes only the ruins of them were left, like overgrown Legos piled in a field, dotting the landscape of the ghost towns from the old west in the south of Kansas. 

The building she was looking at on Sam’s screen was one of these, though it looked like it had been burnt down some time ago.  The stone walls were charred black in places and crumbling, and the roof was entirely missing; victim of the elements.  Its remains were standing lonesome and abandoned in a field with a cluster of trees that had probably been used at some time as a property marker.  Behind the building, she could see, grouped in half hazard rows and overgrown by field grasses and weeds, the worn down and crooked remains of headstones.

“Is that an old church?” Delilah asked, turning to look at Sam for an explanation.

“Yeah, circa 1890.”

“Looks about right.  Why are you looking at ruins?”

“Confession is about cleansing, baring the soul to God and asking for forgiveness.”

“I thought you needed a priest for that, no?”

“Well, Catholics use priests who serve “in persona Christi”, and who then dictate penance, but other Christian faiths don’t necessarily use priests as intermediaries.  Many, in fact, believe in direct communication with God.  And all that needs is a connection to the divine.”

“Hence, old church.”

“Exactly.”  Sam had a little smile pulling at the corner of his lips.

Confession. Penance.  Remorse.  Delilah sat back in her chair, letting her mind soak up the task ahead.  This wasn’t just a question of going through the motions like a spell, if she was going to be using her own blood to cure Dean, it had to be pure, and that meant she had to seriously consider what she would be confessing to…  God.

“This particular site has been abandoned for a long time, but it’s hallowed ground nonetheless, and this way you don’t have to worry about people overhearing or disturbing you.  It’s about 20 minutes south from here, in what used to be Dispatch.”

“Right,” Delilah said, slapping her knees and jerking herself up to her feet.  “Text me the directions and I’ll get going.  You going to be ok while I’m gone?”

Sam chuckled lightly and raised his eyebrows at her, “Yeah, I’ll be fine.  I’ll get things ready on this end so we can start as soon as you get back.  I’ll need to bless the dungeon too, because the ritual needs to take place on consecrated ground.”

Delilah stared at him in skepticism, “And you can do that?”

“Uh, yeah,” he answered looking sheepish, “It’s like blessing water to make holy water.  No big deal really.”

Delilah huffed and shook her head, _these guys… really_.  “Alright Mister Holy Man, if I get back here and you’re in full priest outfit though, I’m out,” she threw out as she turned to head back out towards her room to get her jean jacket.

“I haven’t had to dress up like a priest in years.  The tight collar always gets me.  It’s worse than a tie.”

Delilah stopped and fought a losing battle with herself to not turn around.  He was yanking her chain, she knew it, trying to see if she would react to his blatant attempt to rib her.  In the end, she gave in and turned around, giving him her best frown as he looked back at her, sheepish grin on his face just lighting up the room.  She shook her head at him, narrowing her eyes, and made to turn away again, but he called her back before she could take a step.

“Delilah, here.”

She turned back around just in time to catch something small and jingling in her right hand.  She opened her fingers to find the all too familiar Winchester rifle bullet keychain with the key to Dean’s car.  “Sam, don’t go in there without me.  You don’t have to do any of this alone.”

“Thanks,” he said, his voice sounding rough to her ears.  “Just knowing that…  It’s…  It helps.”

She closed her fingers tightly again and gave Sam a last look and nod before heading out to her room for her jacket and gun, and then out to the garage to meet up with the sleek black Baby.

 

Delilah stood on the threshold of the old church.  She gazed in at what remained of the inside; wild field grass and flowers growing up between what was left of the rotted floorboards.  Nothing much was left of the seats, or even the alter, but the charred bones of these, looking like they would blow apart if the wind blew too hard.  She stepped inside feeling the slight breeze swirl around her gently, the wisps of it drawn in through the missing roof and caught between the stone walls.

There was a strange stillness inside what remained of the building, and Delilah was trying hard not to fight it.  She needed every ounce of her anorexic faith if this was going to work.  She closed her eyes and breathed deeply, no scent of burnt wood, all the ash washed away over the last century by rain and storm.  Mildew and wildflowers tickled her nose as she took slow breath after slow breath, taking the peacefulness of the place into herself and letting go of her fears and worries as she exhaled.  When she opened her eyes again, she was looking up into the starry night sky.  Her feet had brought her to the centre of the one room church, the collapsed roof creating a window to the cosmos.

Calm overtook her, infusing her very being with quiet relaxation that she did not fight.  Her muscles loosened in ways they hadn’t been able to do in weeks, and relief flooded her tired mind as the beauty of the site filled her with serenity.  Her eyes landed on the thick wooden cross that had somehow survived the fire that had destroyed the church, as well as the years of decay afterwards, and she was reminded of her purpose.

Taking another deep breath, Delilah focused on the cross, feeling less than certain about what she was doing.

“Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned… That’s how this is supposed to start right?”  Staring at the cross behind the remains of the alter stone, she felt her doubt trying to creep its way back in.  “God this is stupid.  I’m talking to myself in this mouldy, broken place… Appropriate, I guess.  Sam really did find the perfect spot for me.  Broken.  Hollow.”  Delilah’s gaze unfocused as she felt herself slowly sinking into her misery.  She had been keeping it at bay all day, barely, but in the quiet solitude of the church, she could feel it creeping in at the edges again.

She shook herself, letting her arms dangle loosely by her sides as she tried to find that calm from a moment before.  “Ok, ok…  shake it out.  Start again.”  A few deep breaths and she was ready to try again.  “I seriously don’t know how to start this.  Is someone really listening?  Or am I just talking to myself?”  The over reaching branches of the trees beside the remains of the church shushed and swished in the breeze and Delilah felt herself lose her nerve again. “I’m so stupid.  Why did I think I could do this?  Sam should be the one standing here, not me.  This is just turning into something else I suck at.”

She looked up to the stars again, “Are you even there?” she asked of the twinkling firmament as a slow tear ran down the side of her face.  “I have to believe that you are, and that you are listening, even if I can never know for sure…  That’s how this works right?  Faith?”  The wind was the only answer once again and she knew her only choices were to believe, or walk away.  She thought of Sam and Dean and of all the times since first meeting them when they had held strong in the face of danger and seemingly insurmountable odds and she knew that she needed to do this for them.

“Dear God, hear my confession and bless me.  I know I’m not special.  I’m no different than so many out there, so many struggling with who they are, asking what their purpose is; who they should be, what they should do.  I’m lost.  And I’m scared. Who am I to ask for your blessing?  I’m not special, or chosen, like Sam and Dean; my destiny isn’t to save the world from an apocalypse.  I’m just…

“I’ve been lost for so long, it’s hard to know where to start.  I’ve been so many different people, and none of them…  none feel like who I am now, who I should be.  I’m just hollow, empty…  What’s my purpose?  Why am I here?  What the hell am I doing?

“Since I met Sam and Dean, I feel like…  I feel… useful.  I feel like maybe I can make a difference.  I know…  I know that I can help people, I can save them!  And that’s all I want to do.  Save people.  I want to feel like what I do will be important to someone.  I want my life to mean something.

“But I’m scared.  Maybe that’s what I want to confess to you.  This is what I hide deep down.  I’m so scared that I’m simply not enough.  I won’t be enough when the time comes.  I’m just a nothing girl, from a nowhere town, with a fucked up life.  I’m not a hero, I can’t do all these things.  What if I can’t bear the weight of saving the world?  Saving… Dean?  Saving the people that I love.  What if I’m just a fraud, and in the end, I really don’t have what it takes to fix this?  Oh God…  What if I can’t fix it?

“Please, I need to make this right, for Sam… and for the world.  It needs Dean Winchester…  whole.  It needs…  please, I need him,” she finished in a whisper.

Tears were streaming down her face as Delilah found herself kneeling amidst the rubble of the old church and she let herself give in to the emotion, trusting that it was all a part of her purification.  She felt laid bare, naked and vulnerable, sharing her inner most fears and desires with the room that had become infused with something that Delilah could not put her finger on.  It felt almost alive, like she was not alone anymore.  It felt like every inch of the charred stones, rotted wood, delicate wild flowers, swaying branched, and blinking stars, all of it was breathing, all of it was alive and conscious; aware of her in that holy place.  The presence she felt was far from evil, or even tangible like when the back of her neck tingled.  She felt like her mother had just stepped into her room as a child and wrapped a comforting arm around her shoulders after waking up from a nightmare.  She felt…

Loved.


	16. Dangerous Tonight

_I’m dangerous, I’m a dying breed,_

_Poisonous like a centipede,_

_I’m capable of the foulest deed,_

_Dangerous tonight._

_I’m dangerous like razorback,_

_Deadly like a heart attack,_

_Well, I don’t bend, and I don’t crack,_

_Dangerous tonight._

_I’m dangerous like a broken glass,_

_I’m a flesh fanatic psychopath,_

_I can cause you pain and make it last,_

_Dangerous tonight._

 

Sam was in the library when she got back to the bunker.  She could hear him shifting chairs around as she stepped up into the war room from the kitchen hallway.  When she joined him, passing through the lit glass entryway, it was to find that in her absence, he had managed to pick up the mess he had left when he had rushed off to Michigan.  The library was back to its usual pristine condition and Sam was putting away the last of the books.

“Hey,” he called out to her when he heard her foot on the wooden floorboards.  “How’d it go?”

Delilah took a deep breath as she considered what to say, “Good,” she answered after a pause, realizing that it was true; she felt free, lighter somehow.  “Have you checked on Ben?  I kinda just shoved him in the room and left earlier.”

“Yeah, out like a light.  Considering the concussion, that might not be the best thing, but Cas’ll patch him up when he gets here.”

“Any word on when that’ll be?” Delilah approached the end of the first table where a few items had been neatly laid out, almost like Sam was trying to make up for the previous chaos.

“Nothing.  He’s not picking up his phone.”

“Well, that’s pretty typical.”

Sam huffed in agreement as he pushed the last book into its spot on the library shelf and made his way to where she was standing, taking in what she figured were the tools of the trade when it came to curing demons: a black roll out case with eight sixty ML syringes, empty; a flask of holy water; a large, non-descript hunting knife; and Sam’s demon killing knife.  Delilah stared at this last one, a small twinge of unease as she thought about using it on Dean.

“It’s just a precaution.  I won’t let him hurt you.”

Delilah glanced at Sam, the model of chivalrous heroism, her champion in blue plaid, and promised herself that it would not come to that – she would not be the reason that Sam would have to kill his own brother.

“Time to talk shop: how exactly does this cure work?”

He went over the specifics of the ritual with her.  First, he would need to bless the dungeon, consecrate it for its holy purpose.  Then, she would need to draw about half a syringe worth of blood from herself and inject it into Dean’s veins.  She would have to do this eight times – once every hour.  With the last dose, she would also have to slit her hand and hold it against his mouth, and recite the final exorcism line.

“But if I exorcise him, won’t that send his soul to Hell?”

“It’s a modified exorcism, more of a blessing… you’re exorcising the evil, demonic part of him, the stain on his soul.”

“So…  I’m the Snuggle bear and he’s dirty laundry?”

Sam burst out laughing and Delilah thought that there had never been a more comforting sound.  She smiled at him, but her attention quickly shifted back to their immediate purpose.  Her desperation of the last few days, fueled by the absolute need to find and cure Dean, seemed to have lightened in the short time since her confession, and it had been replaced by a calm understanding of what had to be done.  What a relief to find herself thinking logically again.

They gathered the supplies and made their way down to the storerooms.  Sam stopped suddenly in front of door 7b, his hand on the dead bolt.  He looked worried.  Time slipped by and Delilah became concerned by Sam’s continued inaction.  She shifted the things in her hands to the crook of her right arm and laid her hand on his shoulder.  As though triggered by the feel of her, he turned his head towards her slightly and spoke over his shoulder: “Are you ready for this?”

“Are you?” she asked him right back.  There was no outward sign that Sam was not alright; his face was smooth and blank, his shoulders did not heave in betrayal of more laboured breathing – a complete stranger would not have given it a second thought.  But Delilah was far from being a stranger, and she knew – Sam was not okay.  She did not know what to do to make him feel better though.  What could she possibly say that would make any of this alright?  Before he could completely loosen the bolt, Delilah slipped around him, sliding herself between him and the door.  She wrapped her free arm around his waist, below his slinged arm, and laid her head against his chest.  He quickly wrapped his good arm around her shoulder and held her against him for a moment.  “We can do this,” Delilah whispered against the blue plaid pattern of his shirt.  “I got you.”

If Sam found anything humorous in the idea that she, a five-foot-three scrap of a girl, could do anything to protect the six-foot-four giant, he didn’t let on.  Instead, they pulled apart and proceeded to enter the forebodingly dark anteroom to the dungeon.  The creak of the shelf hinges as they rattled along in their tracks was like nails on a chalkboard and perfectly in tune with the threatening aura emanating from beyond the barrier.  As they cleared the way, Delilah looked beyond Sam to see Dean sitting, uncharacteristically sedate, on a chair in the middle of the devil’s trap that had previously held Crowley.  How completely unsettling to see Dean in that place, his arms and legs tied to the chair with rope, the demon cuffs still dangling from his right wrist.  As though only mildly curious to see what was happening around him, he slowly tilted his head back, his green eyes locking onto hers and drawing out her soul along with her breath.  His stare held her captive, she was enthralled like the first time she’d ever seen him, only now the cold detached hatred chilled her and she had to supress a shiver.  Dean released her and turned his piercing stare on his brother.  Sam held out his hand to her, sparing his brother a quick glance, but no more.  Delilah joined him by the table he had moved to the side of the room, and handed him the black cloth case that contained the syringes.  Sam busied himself laying out the tools they had brought down.

“Really,” Dean said to their backs, sounding bored and annoyed.  Sam ignored him and Delilah was doing her best to follow his lead, but Dean’s presence was unsettling her more than she thought it would.  “So, who’s going to be bleeding into me?”

“I am,” Delilah turned and stared him down, daring him say something.  Dean remained quiet; meeting her gaze with calm, his lips drawn up at the corner, like the prospect of being injected with her blood was amusing.

He turned to address his brother’s back, dismissing her entirely, “Sam I know you think you’re gonna try and fix me, but did it ever occur to you that maybe I don’t want to be fixed?  Just let me go live my life.  I won’t bother you.”

Delilah huffed, “Yeah, except you’ve already landed on my doorstep once.”

Dean slowly shifted his gaze to lock with hers again, “You’re the one who called me, remember?  I hadn’t given you a second’s thought until you did.”

“So, why didn’t you just ignore it then?”

A wicked smile spread on his lips as he tilted his head down a touch, “I’m not one to turn down a booty call, you know that.”  Delilah shifted from one foot to the other, his unwavering intensity making her uncomfortable.  He pushed on, “What was your confession, Lilah?  Did you get that priest all hot and bothered with tales of your whoring?  Did he fill you up good and tight with his holy cock?”

Sam interrupted Dean, suddenly turning around and spattering him with holy water from his flask.  Dean hissed and bared his teeth as the droplets hit him and sizzled on his skin.  “Rictum sacrum, hanc terram consecro” Sam began as he spilled more water onto the floor of the dungeon.

“Funny, Sam.  You think I’m just gonna sit here like Crowley, getting all weepy while you shoot me up?  Well, screw that.  I don’t want this!”

“Yeah, I pretty much figured that out,” Sam said, gesturing Delilah back to the table.

Dean fell silent, though she could feel his burning stare on her back as Sam pulled out the first of the eight syringes.  Delilah drew in a slow breath and let it out again as he reached for her arm.  She held it out, pulling up her sleeve to her elbow.  Sam pulled an alcohol swab from his jean pocket and quickly rubbed it on her skin where she could see a vein pushing at the pale barrier that kept all her insides where they were supposed to be.  Strange how she had never really paid much attention to the zig zagging lines before, she probably would have just stabbed herself in the arm and hoped to find a pool of blood to draw from, like digging for a well with a divining rod.  She watched Sam as he uncapped the syringe and lined up the needle with the blood vessel.  She generally wasn’t squeamish, but there was something about slowly watching the sharp point push against and then slip under her skin that was a tad disconcerting, the pinch of it hardly even registered in her brain she was so focused, analyzing his every move in case she would need to do it herself later.  Sam started to draw back on the plunger and the clear plastic chamber began to fill with bright red blood.  Before she could even feel a thing though, the syringe was halfway full and Sam removed the needle from her arm, pressing down on the point where it had gone in with a tissue.  Delilah covered it with her hand and applied pressure, and then she looked up at him.  He was staring back at her, a question mark on his face, silently asking her if she was alright.  Delilah nodded, she was fine, that had been nothing really.  She looked down at her arm and found that it wasn’t even bleeding anymore; a tiny red spec the only mark left behind.  She smiled at Sam and reached for the syringe in his hand.  After a slight hesitation, he gave it to her and she turned to face the demon in the room.

Dean was looking at her with his piercing, calculating look again and she took a step towards him, already scanning his bare forearms for a vein.  “You don’t even know if this is gonna work, do you?” he said as she got within grabbing distance.  “You know, I got a hell of a lot more running through me than just demon juice.”

Delilah’s eyes fell on the red welt in the shape of a backwards F on his arm.  The Mark of Cain.  He was right, she could almost feel the air vibrating with the power emanating from him.  Just below the Mark, she spotted the vein she wanted to use, thank goodness she wouldn’t need to spend a second more this close to him.  Sam had moved nearby, covering her flank as though she was running point on a hunt.  She leaned in close and lined up the needle just as Dean’s eyes suddenly turned black and he lunged at her baring his teeth like a wild dog.  She startled, but Sam was right there, and he doused his brother with holy water again making him retreat with a cry and a sizzle.

“Now, Delilah!”

Delilah jabbed the needle into Dean’s vein, getting another grunting cry, and pressed down on the plunger before he could try to attack her again.  She drew back when the needle was empty and watched as he closed his fists tightly, his breathing turning to heaving huffs.  The water Sam had dropped on him was running down his face in beads and the look in his eyes was murderous as he glared at them both, not even faking warm and fuzzies for them anymore.  There was nothing in that stare but anger, hatred, and the threat of violence.

“Just so you know, Dean,” Delilah spoke up, spurred by her need to make things perfectly clear, “I’m not ashamed of my sexual appetites.  So, you just go ahead and slut shame me with your made up porno wet dreams, I know what my conscience struggles with…  and it’s got nothing to do with that shit.”

Dean looked like he was going to reply, but then his face changed as his eyebrows furrowed together and he looked to the floor.  Then his lips curled back from grinding teeth and his body jerked like someone had just punched his gut and he huffed and gagged.  Delilah’s panic came back, flooding her, what had she done?  She turned her questioning eyes to Sam but he was looking just as unsure as he watched his brother cry out in clear pain and struggle against the ropes.  The gasps quickly turned to growls that didn’t even sound remotely human anymore.  They watched in concern as Dean hung his head low, his breath coming out in pants through clenched teeth.  Delilah turned to Sam.  “Is this what happened with Crowley?” she whispered.  Sam took a moment before tearing his eyes away to look at her.  He said nothing, but his face spoke volumes.  Delilah turned back to look at Dean and tried to not let her worry show on her face.  They were out of the pan now for sure.

Delilah set a timer on her phone for an hour and made her way to the table to see if things needed tidying up.  They didn’t, but she shifted the items there around a bit, putting the used needle down and off to the side.  Behind her, Dean continued making noises that bordered on animalistic as her blood made it through his circulatory system.  She closed her eyes trying hard not to lose her confidence.  This would work.  It had to work.

“Dean?” Sam said, drawing Delilah’s attention back to them.

Dean’s head was down, and his breathing laboured.  What she could see of his face was cringing, his shoulders were tense, and his fists were closed tightly, the skin stretched across the back of his knuckles.  There was still some dried blood there from the beating he had given Ben at the bar.  What had she done to him?  Sam was looking stoic, his face a complete blank as he took a step closer to his suffering brother.  He said his name again as he leaned down to get a better look at him.  Dean suddenly lunged forward, actually making the bolted chair creak like it was going to move or break apart.  His teeth were bared like he would have ripped his brother’s throat out had he not startled away quickly.

Dean let out a mirthless laugh as looked up at his brother with his cold, empty green eyes.  “You sure you have the stomach for this, Sammy?”

Sam’s face was tense, his lips pursed tightly as his shoulders heaved a bit, his calm and collected composure shattered for a moment.  Delilah walked up to him and laid her hand on his shoulder, squeezing the tight muscles.

Dean shifted his gaze over to her and the last of the cold smile left his face and he watched her quietly as she pulled Sam beyond the edge of the devil’s trap.  No sense in taking more risk than was necessary.  It would not do to forget what they were dealing with.  She had expected Dean to turn his malevolence on her, but he just continued to stare at her silently.  She didn’t avoid his gaze, though she also didn’t want to stare him down.  His eyes were not blinking half as often enough as they should have, and it was disconcerting to say the least.  They had a hunger to them, camouflaged by the cold hatred, though whether he was hungry for sex or violence was unclear.  Either way, she had no desire to poke the beast.

When her phone finally vibrated, announcing the end of the long first hour, no one had spoken in forty-five minutes.  Dean’s focus was sharp as ever, like he was immune to boredom now that he was a demon.  Sam had taken up position, sitting back on the corner of the table, his composure regained.  Delilah had decided to sit on the only other chair in the room, bringing it up to the table so she could sit near Sam and keep an eye on Dean.

Sam reached beside him automatically and pulled the second syringe from the case, uncapping the metal needle.  Delilah took a deep breath, aware that Dean was watching their every move, analyzing them for weaknesses to exploit.  Once again, she held her arm out to Sam who repeated the steps from earlier and drew another thirty millilitres of blood from her.  She crossed into the devil’s trap and walked up to Dean, Sam following her and ready to toss holy water at his brother again if he lunged for her.  He didn’t though, keeping docile this time.  She spotted the vein from before and slipped the needle into it.  Dean grunted, but nothing more as she pushed down on the plunger once again, mixing her blood to his.

A few seconds barely passed as she quickly backed out of the circle on the ground and suddenly Dean was crying out in his odd bark-like demon growls and pulling against his restraints, the tendons popping out on his arms as he clenched his fists and fought against the cure coursing through his body.  His breathing was laboured as he gasped out, “For all you know, you could be killing me.”

Delilah opened her mouth to respond, a second away from expressing the doubt conjured from seeing Dean in so much pain.  Sam jumped in though stopping her from giving Dean more ammunition for his taunts.  “Or,” he said, “you’re just messing with us.”

Delilah put the empty needle down on the table with its twin from before and she stood, keeping her back to Dean’s tortured cries as Sam went on, keeping his brother’s focus on him and away from Delilah, giving her a moment to compose herself.  She restarted the timer on her phone.  “Either way, the lore doesn’t say anything about exceptions to the cure.”

Behind her Dean let out a chuckle, “The lore,” he said, clear disdain in his rough sounding voice.  “Hunters…  Men of Letters.  What a load of shit it all is.  What the fuck do they know?  They’re just a bunch of old fucks who thought they knew it all when really they were barely scratching the scabs.  And where did it get them, huh?”  Silence fell in the room, a pregnant pause as Dean waited for an answer from them.  Delilah finally turned back around, taking in Sam’s casual posture, as he sat back against the table like before.

“You want me to debate you?” he asked, looking tired or bored or both. “This isn’t even the real you I’m talking to.”

“Oh, it’s the real me alright.”  Sam gave him a pitying look.  “The new real me—” Dean went on, unaffected and uncaring, “The me that sees through the bullshit we always told ourselves to justify the fucked up shit we do.”  Dean paused again, but Sam didn’t comment this time, just continued to watch his brother like he was just humouring him by listening.  “Winchesters: Do gooders!  Fighting the natural order.  Well let me tell you something: guys like me, we ARE the natural order.  It’s the way it was set up.”

“Guys like me, still gotta do what we can.”

“Don’t be so full of yourself, Sammy.  ‘Cause see, from where I’m sitting, there ain’t much difference from what I turned into to what you already are.”

Delilah glanced away from Dean a moment when Sam shifted uncomfortably beside her.  He had lost his bored look, his eyebrows knitting together, his eyes narrowed.  _What was going on?_ “What exactly is that supposed to mean?” he asked his brother defensively.

Dean was looking like a smug son of a bitch.  “I know what you did when you went looking for me.  I know how far you went.  Crowley told me all about it.”  From the corner of her eye, Delilah could see Sam shift again, swallowing visibly.  _What was Dean talking about?_  “So, let me ask you, little bro…  Which one of us is really a monster?”

Delilah had barely a second to react as Sam jerked away from the table, looking like he was going to lunge at Dean.  She turned her back to Dean and held Sam back, her hands against his heaving chest.  “Sam!” Delilah said, forcefully, trying to get him to focus on her instead of Dean’s taunts.  When he didn’t look down, she shoved against him.

Behind her, Dean went on, stoking his brother’s anger for sport, “That line we always tried so fucking hard not to cross, between us and the things that we hunted, ain’t so clear anymore is it?”

“Sam!  Let’s go.  Come on.” Delilah said, shoving against him again and getting him to turn back towards the door and the exit.

Dean laughed “You might actually be worse than me!” he called out to Sam as Delilah continued to push him out of the storage room and into the hallway.  She shut the door on Dean’s taunting voice.

“Sam, what the fuck?” she ragged on him, as he shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other.  “You can’t let him get to you like that!”

Even away from Dean’s baiting, Sam was having a hard time calming down.  He was heaving, his jaw clenched, his teeth grinding together.  There was something about what Dean had said that was really getting to him.  And if it was getting to him this badly…  There had to be some truth to it.  “What did he mean?” she asked him.

Sam avoided her eyes, looking at the wall, the ground, the door at the end of the hallway, anywhere but at her.  It was bad, whatever it was, and clearly, he wasn’t ready to talk about it.  What on Earth could be that bad?  What had he done?

“We have to get back in there.  Can’t leave him like that,” Sam said, reaching for the knob behind her.

“Uh, no way.  Not like this.  You go deal with whatever you’re dealing with, but you’re not going back in there like this, he’ll just pick and taunt until you crack.  You saw him, it’s just a game to him.”

“I can’t let you go back in alone.”

“I’m better off alone in there than with you like this.”

“Damnit!” Sam burst out suddenly, and he stalked off, slamming the door at the end of the hall behind him.  She couldn’t help but startle at the violence of it.  Sam was never like this, he was the one that was always in control.  And then she remembered the mess in the library when she first got back and the madness she could feel from that chaotic spread… and his broken phone in the corner.  Whatever had happened while searching for his brother, he was still feeling it.  Maybe he had kept it at bay, but faced with it again it was clear that it wasn’t over.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Delilah whispered under her breath.  She closed her eyes for a moment, centering herself once again.  When she was ready, she went back into the dungeon to take up the watch again until the hour was up for the next dose.

Dean was waiting for her, a sly smile on his lips, his eyes on her instantly, boring into her like he was looking for the right thread to pluck.  “So, did you dry my baby brother’s tears?”

“You underestimate him, Dean, if you think that made him crack.”

He didn’t answer, the smile pulling his lips a little further to the side like he knew something she didn’t.  Which he did.  “What were you talking about earlier?  What did Crowley tell you about Sam?”

“You sure you wanna hear it, sweetheart?  Can Sam handle falling from that pedestal you got him up on?  I know you think he’s a Saint, but you don’t know him like I do.  The things he’s done would have you running for the hills.  And what’s his excuse?  Huh?  He doesn’t have a curse or even a holy Mark to manipulate him, make him do things… No, baby bro…  it’s all him, always.  Power hungry, desperate, monstrous.”

“Cut the crap, Dean.  Either tell me or don’t, but this Crowley manipulation bullshit you’re trying to pull?  It ain’t working.  You don’t have the cunning for it.”

“I don’t need to be cunning when the truth is so perfectly twisted.”

“Go, then.  You gonna get it out, or are you just teasing me?”  Delilah raised her eyebrows at him, waiting to see if Dean would take the sexual bait while she took up Sam’s position, sitting back against the edge of the table facing him.

“Sam was trying to get a twenty on me,” Dean seemed to have decided to tell her, he settled as much as he could with his restraints into telling the details of what Sam had done that was so terrible.  Delilah crossed her arms and braced herself to hear the worst of it.  “And he would stop at nothing to get it from any demon he could snag.  He was vicious.  Took pleasure in torturing, taking out all his frustrations on them.”

“Good.  If you think I’m gonna pity a bunch of crossroads demons, you got me all backwards.”

Dean smiled again, “Crowley didn’t want to be found, and he couldn’t have all his best closers tortured and murdered, so orders were given… no demons were to appear to Sam Winchester, no matter what.  Sammy got desperate.  Started stalking shit hole bars, spying on the poor sobs that spilled their woes to bartenders in time honoured tradition.  And that’s where he found Lester.

“Lester was the kind of self-absorbed, narcissistic sonofabitch that was ready to sell his soul to stick it to his cheating wife for going out and doing what he’d been doing for years, all the asshole needed was a little nudge from someone in the know.  I mean, who needs to scout an area when you got Sam Winchester throwing souls at demons for deals?” Dean added with a laugh.  “So he took a guy at his lowest, used him, fucking showed him how to summon a crossroads demon.  Maybe he would’ve liked to have gotten there before the deal went down, but he didn’t really care about poor ol’ Lester.  He strung that demon up to a tree and went at her, while Lester crawled on home, drunk, stupid and a big ol’ FINAL SALE stamp on his soul.”

“I never meant…” Sam suddenly said from behind her.

“Who cares what you meant?” Dean burst out harshly, “And just so you know, I killed Lester myself.  And his wife?  She married the tattoo guy she was banging.  So your little stunt?  Cost him his life AND his soul.  Nice work,” Dean finished with another chuckle.

“You know, Dean,” Delilah said, “You say Sam’s worse than you, but shit happens, things spin out of control, you said it yourself, Lester was the kind of guy that would’ve found a way to a crossroads with or without Sam’s help.  Was it a shit thing to do? Yeah, but desperation does something to the human soul.  Your soul is corrupt, and so you think it’s funny that Lester gave up the ghost, but look at Sam.  It’s clear he regrets what he did.  You’re enjoying twisting the knife to his wound, but if he was even half as bad as you are now…  there would be no wound to twist in.  So, you’re going to have to try a hell of a lot harder than that to screw with my head.”

“Look at you, so eager to be the target.  The victim.  Tell me, sweetheart, did you find the poor asshole who would finally fill you up, or is Sam gonna be the latest to suffer your particular brand of soul sucking attention?”

“Back to slut shaming Dean?  We talked about this.”

“Look who’s only thinking about cock.  I’m not talking about that hole.  I’m referring to the one in your heart.  The hole left by your asshole father when he threw you away so completely that he let... no sorry, encouraged his friends to fuck you backwards and sideways.  Can’t say I blame him.  What the fuck good are you for anything else?”

“Shut up, Dean!” Sam growled menacingly.

“Oooh, stepping up Sam?  He does know, right Lilah?  I’m not revealing any… secrets here am I?”  Judging by the wicked smile, he clearly didn’t care if he was.

“You’re not that important Dean.  Actually, I think I told Sam before I even thought of telling you.  You know, when you and I were just fucking.  Oh, wait, that might confuse you since it never went beyond that for you.”

Delilah shook her head.  She had given in to his taunts, lashed out.  She wasn’t going to get anywhere trying to get him to feel bad now.  He hadn’t cared about any of that when he was still human, he certainly wasn’t going to care now that he was a demon.  The next words out of his lying mouth sent a chill crawling down her spine like a swarm of baby spiders had just hatched and were making their way through her whole body and squeezing into her heart.

“I love you, Lilah.”  The fucker paused, taking in her posture from nose to toes slowly, clearly gauging the impact of the gut punching comment thrown out so casually.

 _The look on his face was all smiles, and joy as he whispered to her loud as a train wreck, “I love you, Lilah,” and she just glimpsed the black-eyed blink before the wave of blood came crashing down towards her…_ Delilah was shaking from the memory of the dream and she struggled to hold on to her composure.  Her phone started vibrating, snapping her back to the moment, announcing the end of the hour.

“You’re just a lying sack of shit, Dean,” she whispered.  She reached into the case for a fresh needle, and before she could think about what she was doing, she jammed it into her left arm, somehow finding a vein because as she pulled back on the plunger, it began to fill with red blood.  When it reached the halfway mark, she pulled it out, hardly paying attention to the little bit that kept bleeding.

She walked right up to him, ignoring Sam who had reached out to her – she didn’t need his comfort right now.  Up close to the monster, she looked down into his mocking face, the eyes she had fallen into so many times, the lips she had kissed and yearned for ever since, even the fucking freckles on his nose, and she thought that she had never hated him so much.  She looked down at his arm, searching out the vein from before.

She had gotten too close, but her distraction stopped her from seeing his hand reach up as far as the ropes allowed and wrap around her forearm.  He gripped her tightly, stopping her from plunging the needle into him and forcing her to stay where she was as he leaned in close to her.  “If this doesn’t work,” he whispered into her ear, “you know what you’re gonna have to do to me, right?”

Delilah managed to twist her arm free, just as Sam wrapped his arm around her shoulders from behind to pull her away from his brother.  “You got the stomach for that, Lilah?” Dean yelled at her hoarsely.

She shook Sam off quickly and stepped back up to Dean.  She stabbed his arm with the needle and injected him with her purified blood.  Dean grunted as she pushed down on the plunger, losing his smugness.  “Why don’t you let me worry about what I can handle.”

She yanked the empty needle away, and tossed it onto the table with the other ones as she walked away.  Dean’s screams were louder this time, like the pain was getting more intense, compounding as opposed to being something you got used to.  His screams followed her all the way out of the dungeon and beyond, resonating in her head long after she was out of ear shot.


	17. Stranglehold

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay... So I feel a little extra disclaimer is maybe needed here, in case you don't read the tags... or haven't caught on yet about my series... or haven't read my series... whatever.
> 
> I'm a Dean girl... through and through. I love Dean Winchester, he is a well-written, well-acted and all around just amazing character.
> 
> My favourite seasons are season 9 and 10 BECAUSE of the Mark of Cain and its impact on Dean.
> 
> I set out to do two things with this series: 1 throw a love interest into the messed up chaos of the Winchesters' lives, and 2 turn up the rating to NC-17 (which is not JUST about sex btw)
> 
> That being said... Demon!Dean is not a nice guy.
> 
> You have been warned.

_The road I cruise is a bitch now, baby_

_But no, you can’t turn me round_

_And if a house gets in my way, baby_

_Ya know I’ll burn it down_

_Got you in a stranglehold, baby_

_You best get outta the way_

Delilah was sitting in her chair up on the mezzanine when Sam found her a few minutes later.  She turned her head towards the wall beside her, trying to conceal the tears that were silently running down her face.

“I’ll be down in a sec, Sam,” she tried to say, but all that came out was a choked sob.

Sam’s large hand on her face surprised her and she turned towards him.  He was crouched beside her, looking at her with sadness and unshed tears in his eyes, his eyebrows pulled up in the middle and his lips thin.  She saw his Adam’s apple bob as he swallowed.  His thumb rubbed the wetness on her cheeks just as a single drop fell from his eyelashes.

She threw herself at him and wrapped her arms around his broad shoulders, squeezing him so tightly as his own arm came up to hold her around her waist.

“I’m sorry, Sam.  I let him get to me.”

“You’re not the only one, Delilah.  This is…  so much harder than I thought it would be.”

The tears stopped falling and the chaos inside her that had sent her running from the room seemed to settle as she looked into Sam’s green flecked hazel eyes.  The peace and calm returned to her, almost like the feeling that had filled her back at the ancient church had just been waiting for her to let it in again.

Delilah pulled away from him, his arm falling back to his side.  She sat on the edge of the chair, looking down at his thoughtful expression.  Dean wasn’t the only one in pain.  “I don’t know what I had been expecting, but… that thing down there…  There’s no human left.”

“No.  I refuse to believe that.  Dean’s still there.  He has to be.”

“What about what he said?  About the cure killing him?  Do you think it’s true?”

Sam shook his head, his eyes losing focus for a moment.  “If it is,” he said, his voice rough, “Dean’s better off dead, than a monster.”

He stood up from his crouch suddenly, forcing Delilah’s head all the way back to keep her eyes on his face.  He tucked his hair behind his left ear and awkwardly tried to do the same with his right, a momentary flash of frustration passing on his face.

Delilah stood from the chair, ready to get back at it, she figured the time was nearly done for the hour, and Dean would be due for another dose soon.  Delilah led the way back down to the dungeon.  Sam had closed and locked the main door, so it wasn’t until Delilah had swung it open again that she realized something was terribly wrong.

She approached Dean, who was still strapped tightly to the chair, but his head had dropped down to his chest and he wasn’t moving.  “Dean?” she said his name, like she was summoning an evil genie, wanting to get his attention, but fearing it all the same.

They approached him slowly, expecting another ploy on his part, but when they both made it within the devil’s trap without Dean even twitching a muscle, they knew that whatever this was, Dean wasn’t faking it.

Sam crouched down in front of him, his hand slapping him across the face with a loud snap of skin on skin.  Delilah moved to the side and ended up partly behind Dean, which is when she saw the blood.  “Sam,” she said, calling him over to look at what she had seen.

“Oh shit,” he said, his eyes going round like silver as they landed on his brother’s back.

His burgundy shirt was soaked through.  The bullet Delilah had shot into him to immobilize him was still there and with every dose of blood she gave him, the more the wound was behaving as it would on any human; he was bleeding out.

“I’ll get the med kit,” Sam said, rushing out of the dungeon.

Delilah kneeled down behind Dean’s chair, trying to see how she could get a better look at the wound.  She had just laid one hand on his shoulder when his head lolled to the side and he spoke.  “If you ruin my shirt I’m going to hunt you down.”

“You’re fucking kidding me, right?”

With a groan, Dean’s head fell forward again.  Cursing under her breath, Delilah pushed his shoulders forward and reached down between his body and the hard back of the wooden chair and found the bottom edge of his shirt.  She yanked both the red over shirt and the black cotton t-shirt upwards, ignoring his groans as she wrestled them over his head, leaving him bare backed for her inspection.

There was a small trickle of blood leaking out of the ragged hole in the back of his right shoulder where she had shot him the day before.  Why hadn’t he bothered healing it?  Maybe the devil’s trap bullet was suppressing his powers enough to stop him from doing so.  And if the cure was supposed to make him human again, maybe with each dose she gave him, the less he was able to heal at all.  Dean could bleed out and they’d be left with a cured corpse.

Sam rushed back into the dungeon, medical kit in hand and he came to join her to work on his brother’s wound.  Delilah watched as Sam jammed tweezers into Dean’s bullet hole and moved them around, trying to get a grip on the bullet.  He managed to pull it back out, drawing another weak groan from Dean.  He dropped it to the floor and pulled butterfly bandages from the kit using them to close the edges of the wound together.  Delilah tore open a sterile gauze pack and handed the dressing to Sam who taped it in place over the whole thing.

“Is that going to work?” Delilah asked him.

“If he’s not healing at all, probably not, but we just have to avoid him bleeding out before Cas gets here.”

Dean groaned again from inside his clothing.  Sam stood up, bringing the med kit over to the table.  Delilah freed Dean from his shirts, smoothing them back down his back as best she could.  She came around in front of him and crouched down to look at his face.  He wasn’t looking too good.  A sheen of sweat was covering his face and he felt cold to the touch.  His eyelids fluttered a moment but refused to open.  Delilah laid a hand on his cheek, a faint red mark appearing on his unusually pale skin where Sam had slapped him.

“Dean,” Delilah said, “Come back.”

Dean groaned again, and what sounded like “no” escaped from his lips.  Delilah frowned and shook his shoulders.  “Checking out is not an option, jackass.  Wake up!”  Dean’s head rocked back and he swallowed slowly, his eyes opening and rolling back in his head before finally focusing on the room again.  “Are you okay?” Delilah asked him, looking from one eye to the other.

“Yeah,” Dean moaned out weakly, his eyelids heavy again, “if you consider drowning in your own sweat while your blood boils okay.”

Sam’s hand pulled back on her shoulder, reminding her suddenly that she was crouching in a devil’s trap at the feet of a dangerous demon, and she straightened up quickly, retreating to a safe distance as he regained his senses.

“We can’t stop,” Sam said guiding Delilah back to the table for the next dose of blood.

“Sure you can,” said Dean behind them slowly, his words coming out like his brain was too sluggish to think, “You just stop.  There’s no point in trying to bring your brother back now.  There’s nothing left for you to save.  In fact, your, uh, guilt-ridden, weight-of-the-world bro has been M.I.A. for quite some time now.  But I’m loving the new model—lean, mean Dean.”

Sam uncapped the next syringe, keeping his eyes fixed on his hands as Dean continued his next assault.  “You notice I tried to get as far away from you as possible?  Away from your whining, your complaining.  I chose the King of Hell over you!  Maybe I was just… tired of babysitting you.  Or maybe…”  Dean said as Sam drew blood from Delilah’s vein.  “Maybe it was the fact that my mother would still be alive if it wasn’t for you.  I’m sure your dad would sympathize, wouldn’t he, Lilah?  Your very existence, Sammy, sucked the life out of my life.  Well guess what.  I’m done carrying your lame asses around like an anchor.  I quit.”

Delilah took the syringe from Sam as he turned to face his brother.  “No.  You don’t get to quit.  We don’t get to quit this family.  This family is ALL we have ever had!”

Delilah stepped up close to Dean, keeping clear of his hands.  “And you,” he growled at her as she searched for a vein, “the stray bitch that just wouldn’t go away.  I was so sick and tired of saving your ass from every weak fucking danger out there.  It was such a fucking relief when you finally took the hint and left.  Vampires, cursed objects, demons…  All you ever did was get in the way and I had to drag your ass out of the fire every damn time.  You’ve been nothing but a thorn in my side for a year now.”

Delilah paused, something about that pulling at an idea.  “You’ve given yourself away, Dean,” she said sinking the needle in his arm and pushing the blood into him.  He didn’t scream this time, his head just dropped forward, his face betraying a level of pain that worried Delilah, but Sam was right, they couldn’t stop.

His breathing ragged, his voice hoarse, bent over at the waist as far as the ropes would let him, Dean looked up at her.  “How’s that?”

“You remember our meeting.  Why hang on to that if none of this mattered to you?”

Dean started laughing, the sound mixing with coughing as he bent to the side and then leaned back in the chair, looking drained.

“There’s a lot of shit I remember, Lilah.  It doesn’t mean it’s important.  For instance, I remember Jon Bon Jovi’s mom was a Playboy Bunny, I remember eating a burrito from this nowhere food stand on the side of the i-35… best fucking burrito I ever had, I remember the stupid T-ball uniform I wore when I was four years old.  None of it means jack shit.  Just like you mean nothing.  You think we were saving you that night?  We didn’t even know you were there.  We had been tracking those vamps.  In and out job.  You were kidnapped by bumbling idiots who didn’t even know how to cover their tracks.  Face it, Lilah, you were a perfect target: loner, no family or friends to speak of, you barely even talked to your coworkers… how long would it have taken them to realize that you weren’t coming in to work anymore?  Would they even have been worried?  No.  Because no one gives a shit about you, you’re a self-serve, junk food stand: people take what they need and then forget you were ever more than just something to throw away.”

Dean’s head dropped back down as he wheezed and coughed.  She looked down at him, the hand holding the empty syringe dangling at her side.  “Treat me like shit all you want Dean, it’s not gonna change a damn thing.  I _will_ save you.”

Delilah turned away from him, feeling that hollowness trying to inch its way back in to chase away her purpose and determination.  Sam was standing behind her, every muscle in his body tense, his fists closed so tightly his knuckles were white.  She had seen that look on him before, when she had shown up at the angel compound after Dean had ordered her to stay put.  Sam thought he had beaten her, and his reaction was to punch his brother in the face.  Judging by the looks of it, Sam looked like he was ready to murder his brother this time.  _Oh, Sam_ , she thought, what had she done to earn such fierce loyalty from him?

She made her way back to the table, glancing down at her phone.  It was going on four a.m.  Halfway there.  God, could this night just end?  Somehow the idea that they still had four doses to go made her feel heavy and weary.  Dean quietly wheezing on his chair was a welcome relief from his mental abuse, but she yearned deep in her bones for the whole ordeal to be over.  She reset the timer on her phone.

She turned around and leaned back against the table to keep watch.  Sam was still standing stiffly a few feet to her right and she reached out to grab hold of his left wrist.  He reluctantly let her pull him to where she was, and he sat back on the edge of the table too.  She looped her arm through his and leaned her head against his shoulder, her eyes on the wheezing demon as she waited for the next hour to be up.

The minutes ticked by slowly in the dimly lit dungeon, nothing to make time go faster other than watch an unconscious demon breathe painfully.  Eventually, Sam’s body relaxed a bit, and she let herself sag against him, unable to keep her body from giving in to her exhaustion.  So many thoughts swirled through her mind, some she would have liked to have shared with Sam, for comfort, for companionship, but just how out of it Dean was, was unclear and she didn’t want to risk giving him more ammunition to attack Sam with.

She must have dozed off, because next thing she knew Dean was talking and she startled up.  “Aw, ain’t that sweet.  Look at her, Sam, she’s practically throwing herself at you.  Ripe for the fucking.  If you were waiting for the right time to plant your cock, this is it.”

“Dean, what can’t you get through your thick skull?  I don’t care about that shit, so you can just quit it.”

“Oh, trust me, baby, I know you don’t care.”  Dean’s lips pulled up into a wicked smile even as his head lolled dizzily.  His eyes focused on Sam who was still sitting against the table behind her.  “You want me to tell you what to expect?  I can tell you just how to get her wet, how to get her to beg you for it.”

“Shut up, Dean.”

“It’s easy.  You just gotta take it.  And when she struggles?  When she says no?  That’s when you know she wants it bad.  Isn’t that right Lilah?”  Delilah could feel her rage smouldering inside _, how dare he?_ “Oooh, look at her Sammy, all hot and bothered.  All she wants is to be bent over that table and fucked raw.  Isn’t that right, baby?  That IS how you like it, right?  Don’t mind me, I’ll just sit here and watch…  just like your daddy used to do.  Tell me, Lilah… did he ever whip out his cock and beat off while he watched those men mount his baby girl?  While you looked at him with your bedroom eyes begging him to make them stop?”

It was like watching a train wreck, Dean’s words forcing her back to a time when going home was one of the hardest things she had to do every day: a time when she had been terrified of what waited for her behind the generic apartment door.  And yet, even more terrifying than what was happening behind that door was the prospect that someone would find out, that she would be labelled a slut and a whore like it was somehow her fault that these men were doing those things to her.  She had worked so hard, her whole adult life to put all that behind her, and in those few words, Dean had brought her right back to the precipice of her childhood shame.

“That’s enough, Dean!” Sam’s hoarse cry startled her as he slammed his knuckles down on the table.

“It’s okay, Sam,” Delilah said, letting the calm take her over again, chasing away those long ago thoughts and feelings, “Dean’s just confusing reality and porn again.  Besides…” she added as she heard her phone vibrate, “It’s time for his medicine.”

Delilah uncapped a syringe and drew her blood, feeling the pull at the back of her head, making her head tingle slightly.  She shook it off and made her way to Dean.  Far from docile this time, he pulled and struggled against the ropes binding him to the chair bolted in the floor as she approached him.  He was grunting and growling like a caged animal gnashing his teeth at her.  She wasn’t afraid of him, but he was making it very difficult to inject his vein.  Sam stepped up to help her, grabbing his brother’s head from behind in a choke hold with his free arm, and pulling his head back, exposing his neck while immobilizing him.  The more he struggled against his brother’s grip, the more the thick vein in his neck popped and Delilah aimed the needle right at it, pressing down right away.

The cry that escaped Dean’s throat as Sam and Delilah stepped away from him could have been coming from an angry animal as he growled and barked in anger and pain.

“You fucking whore!” he screamed at her as she dropped the fifth empty syringe on the table.  “You weak fucking bitch.  You wanna know a secret?”

“I’m kind of tired of your idea of secrets, Dean, if it’s all the same to you.”

“This is THE secret, you dumb cunt, the reason why you’re such a shit hunter.  You don’t know how to fight back, and you know why?  Because you don’t WANT to.  You want to give in.  You want to be the victim.  You crave the violence.  I’m happy to provide, Lilah, if that’s what you want.  I’ll slit your throat and bleed you like a fucking pig.”

She suddenly found herself shoved behind something big and wrapped in blue plaid.  Sam had physically put himself between her and Dean, as though that would stop the tirade.

“Be careful there, Sammy.  She’s going to twist you around, chew you up and spit you out.  She’s damaged goods, and she’s going to drag you down into her nightmare then leave you, little brother!”

Delilah tried, like she had done before, to twist around and push back on Sam’s chest, but he was resisting her this time, and the wall of steely muscles refused to budge an inch, even as his chest heaved up and down in his growing rage.  “That’s good, Sam.  You’re getting it.  Keep it up and she just might pull you out of the friend zone and fuck you stupid.  It’s that violence she craves.  She wants to be beaten and used.  It’s all she knows.  All those guys who fucked her back in the day, she liked it.  Why else would she still like it rough?  It reminds her of how it felt to have those men force their cocks into her tight pussy.  She wants to be dominated…”

Sam tore around her and charged down his brother, his fist slamming into his face with more force than she had ever seen Sam use.  Dean’s head snapped back like a tethered speed ball, and Sam hit him again.  He didn’t have the chance to hit him a third time, as Delilah grabbed him by the shoulders and pulled back on his injured arm to get the upper hand.

“Sam!” she yelled, “Get out of here!”  The look in his eyes was wild, out of control, and Delilah couldn’t be sure that he had understood her.  “GO!” she yelled, trying to decide what the hell she could do if he decided to stay.  Thank God Dean seemed to be out like a light, there was no telling what Sam might do if he had continued to taunt him.  He had understood something about his brother much more quickly than she had.  Just how far would Sam go to defend her honour?  Misplaced as his faith in her was.

Sam’s heavy breathing seemed to slow a bit and she put her hands on either side of his face, forcing him to look at her.  “Sam, please,” she whispered, “This is hard enough without both of you losing your minds.  Get out of here.”  She shoved him back a step, and he looked so torn.  She continued to stare at him, willing him to do as she asked.  After what felt like forever, Sam finally turned around and left her alone with Dean, punching the metal siding of the shelves on his way out.

Her back to the unconscious monster, Delilah breathed.  She stared into the darkened storage room beyond the opened shelves that normally concealed the existence of the dungeon and she simply did not want to turn and face the thing in the room masquerading as Dean Winchester.  She waited, listening to the sounds of his laboured breathing, and beyond that the sound of the buzzing electricity in the halogen lights.  She closed her eyes and listened beyond the obvious and felt for the tell-tale sounds of the other inhabitants of the bunker; it wasn’t sounds so much as a sixth, undefinable sense.  The bunker felt different when it was empty than when people were in it, even if those people were sleeping.  And that’s the feeling she was seeking out now, as she turned that perception inside.  She prodded at that calmness that had filled her after her confession, and over and over again throughout the long night, when she felt that everything was becoming too hard to handle, that peace kept coming back when she opened herself up to it, that feeling that even within her body, her mind, her soul…  she was not alone.

Behind her, the demon let out a groan, and she braced herself, expecting him to start up his assault again, but he didn’t.  She turned to look at him, realizing that maybe his body had been compromised.  A cured corpse was not the goal here.  Her eyes landed reluctantly on Dean’s body, slumped in the chair as much as it could be with the restraints: his arms and legs were still firmly tied to the arms and legs of the chair, the devil’s trap on the ground and the demon cuff on his wrist stopping him from using whatever powers his demon status afforded him.  His head was tilted back towards the side of the back rest at an awkward angle and she grew concerned that maybe Sam’s unhinged assault had cause irreparable damage.  Sam kept clinging to the idea that once Castiel finally showed up, all would be repaired, Ben and Dean would be made whole, but Delilah wasn’t so sure.  If Castiel had been unable to mend Sam’s arm a few weeks back because of his dwindling grace, what guarantees did they have that he could fix either the boy or the man?

Delilah contemplated getting close enough to Dean to examine his kinked neck.  She really didn’t want to get close to him.  She could still hear the hateful things he had said, and the threat of violence hung close.  Her hand rested on the pommel of her angel blade and she quickly slipped it out of her belt, holding onto the cool celestial metal tightly in her right hand.  She moved in close to Dean, stepping into the Devil’s Trap like she was stepping into a judo ring.  She moved around the chair trying to see if bones were jabbing at the inside of the skin, as though it was all a cartoon.  Without Dean’s cooperation, it would be impossible to determine if his neck was injured.  As she stood behind him, she noted his boyishly ruffled hair.  He was a monster, she reminded herself.

From this angle, she could see his brow and nose and the delicate curve of his cheek, his dark eyelashes just touching it, and her hand reached out towards him, like she would caress his face gently.  She yearned for simpler times, and yet she realized, that things had never been simple with Dean Winchester.  It seemed as though they had been at odds with each other from the first moment their paths had crossed.

_You think we were saving you that night?_

Dean’s hoarse voice echoed in her mind suddenly and she pulled her hand back before she could touch him. “Right,” she said aloud to no one.  She quickly moved away from him, and headed for the table outside the confining circle.  She hadn’t set her timer after the last dose, but she could see that the clock was approaching the hour again, she wouldn’t have to wait too long with her thoughts.  She tried not to go over the night in her mind, letting the hurtful words that had been spoken and the tortured sounds of Dean’s screams just move on as she hummed tunelessly hoping against hope that the demon would keep sleeping and she would not have to endure another barrage of insults.

Five minutes passed, then ten, and suddenly it was six in the morning.  Sam had not reappeared, and so she reached into the case and pulled out her sixth syringe and without thinking about what she was doing, she drew another thirty millilitres of her own blood, a throbbing headache shooting into the base of her skull and she felt a little woozy, like she had turned her head too fast while standing up.  She made her way over to Dean, and slipped the needle into his arm and pressed the plunger down.  Dean groaned in his sleep, his head suddenly swinging from his shoulder to his chest as she drew away, watching him wearily, but there was no other movement after that.

She went back to the table and dropped the used syringe with the rest of its siblings.  She looked at the two that remained in the case and she felt relieved that it was almost over.  She started her timer again and watched as the numbers ticked along quietly, counting down the time.  She would go insane if she had to stay there waiting for the time to be up.  Where had Sam gone?  Was he still so angry that he couldn’t calm down?  Maybe she was due for another break.

She glanced back at Dean’s sleeping form and decided that he wasn’t going anywhere anyways.  She grabbed her phone and tucked it in the back pocket of her jeans, then she grabbed the remaining syringes and picked up her angel blade again, tucked it in her belt and left the dungeon.  She closed the door to room 7b behind her and made her way out of the storage hallway.

She headed up to the library but found it empty.  “Sam?” she called out.

“Delilah?” she heard his voice echo from off the kitchen hallway.  She headed that way, poking her head into the kitchen quickly, but he wasn’t in there.  She walked down the hallway steps and glanced down to the stairs that led up to the infirmary, but there was no light shining down that way.  She continued on and looked down the side hallway that led to her room.

Light was shining out of the open door of the first room on the right – Dean’s room.  She turned the corner and looked inside to find Sam sitting on his brother’s bed and looking at something in his hands.

“Hey,” she said, standing on the threshold.

“Hey,” he answered, turning to look at her with a tight smile.

“How’re you holding up?”  Sam scoffed and lowered his gaze to the ground in front of him.  “That good, huh?” Delilah went on, a smile in her voice.

“I just…  I can’t believe, Dean would…  say things like that.”

Delilah shrugged and took a step into the room.  It was just a room afterall, the thing to be afraid of was tied up in the dungeon.  “It’s the Mark, or the demon, or whatever you want to tell yourself Sam.”  She sat down on the mattress beside him, the dip making their knees touch.

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t you dare, Sam.  Don’t you dare apologize for your brother.  It’s not your fault, and it’s not your responsibility…  got it?”  Sam nodded, the tips of his hair, escaped from behind his ears, fell against his face and she reached up to tuck the soft strands back in place.  “Besides…  He’s right you know.  I am damaged goods.”

Sam turned his body towards her, reaching up with his left hand and he smoothed it down her long hair, his fingers slipping into the soft waves.  “We all are,” he said softly as he leaned forward.  Delilah’s heart was pounding in her chest as she closed her eyes, Dean’s harsh words bombarding her again, and she felt shame creeping in at the edges as she anticipated the feel of Sam’s lips on hers.  When they touched her forehead instead, lingering a moment before pulling away again, she was both relieved and slightly disappointed.  Sam deserved so much better than her messy confused heart.

She opened her eyes as his hand slipped out of her hair again, a few strands in tow as if it was clinging to him, much in the same way she wanted to wrap herself around him and not let go.

_She’s going to drag you down into her nightmare then leave you._

She couldn’t do that to him.  Delilah glanced down at what he was holding in his other hand and recognized the picture of a very young Dean, his mother’s arm wrapped around him.  That picture usually sat under his desk lamp she knew.  She could see that it wasn’t the only picture though.

“Whatcha got there?” she asked, suddenly very curious about the never-before-seen mementos.

She just caught Sam’s smile as he handed her the small collection of photos.  “I was trying to clean up Dean’s mess,” he said, waving at the discarded single-serving container of pie, the fork still smeared with something dark, cherry or maybe blueberry filling, “And I found these in his notes.”

Delilah took the pictures from him and shifted the top one to the back, revealing the one underneath.  She recognized the blond woman smiling in the photo, leaning into an equally smiling man with dark hair and beard.  “Is this your dad?”

“Yeah.  From before I was born.”

“They look so happy… so normal.”  Sam didn’t say anything, and she moved on to the next photo.  Sam and Dean standing in front of the Impala with an older man between them.  “Who’s that?”

“That’s Bobby.”

“Ah!  The fabled Bobby,” she said, studying his rugged face more closely, a ratty old baseball cap stuck on his head.  “He looks kind.”

Sam huffed, “You’re gonna make him roll over in his grave.  He was as sharp and deadly a hunter as they come.  And he was always ready to say the hard truths that no one wanted to hear.”

The next picture got her by surprise. “Oh my God…  You look like babies.”  Sam and Dean, short hair and peach fuzz and… smiling.  Sam looked like he was laughing whole-heartedly, while Dean’s bashful smile made her heart flutter.

“Dorks more like.  I don’t even remember who took this picture.”

He took the photos back from her and looked at the last one with a sad smile on his lips.  And then the smile melted away and Sam was doleful again.  Delilah put her hand on his shoulder.

“We’ll get him back, Sam.  Two more doses to go and then…”  She couldn’t finish her sentence.

“And then,” Sam repeated, letting it hang between them.


	18. Hell's Bells

_I’m rolling thunder, pouring rain,_

_I’m coming on like a hurricane._

_My lighting’s flashing across the sky,_

_You’re only young but you’re gonna die._

_I won’t take no prisoners, won’t spare no lives,_

_Nobody’s putting up a fight_

_I got my bell…  I’m gonna take you to Hell…_

On their way back to the dungeon, Delilah stopped in to check on Ben.  He was still passed out, although the gangly teenager had managed to find his way under the covers.  If it wasn’t for the state of his face, Delilah would say he looked comfortable and peaceful.  She stood in the doorway watching him sleep, relishing the calm in the room and postponing the moment when she would have to meet up with Sam and inject Dean again.  _Two more doses_ , she mused as she looked down at the blossoming bruise on her arm where she could still see the night’s puncture marks on her pale skin.

She felt a prickle at the back of her head and looked around, expecting to see Sam standing there, maybe wondering where she had gotten lost and why she was taking so long, but her eyes could only see empty hallway.  She frowned, pushing off from the door frame and trying to rub away the prickle that was slowly spreading up her scalp and down her spine.  She looked from one end of the brightly lit hallway to the other, both opening onto connecting hallways at square angles and limiting her view.  There was nothing there.  So, why did she feel like taking off at a run?  She looked to the right, that hallway would bring her back to the storerooms, and then to the left, down the longer part of the hallway, Kevin’s room being about a third of the way in.  She startled when she saw a shadow flicker, like someone had stepped in front of the light in the back hallway.  She took a step in that direction, something telling her that calling out to Sam, _who else could it be_ , would be a bad idea.  Her heart was already pounding in her chest.  _What was going on?_

Suddenly, there was a hand clamped over her mouth, but before she could do anything more than stiffen, Sam was whispering in her ear.  “Dean escaped.”

The bottom dropped out of her stomach.  _No_.  Sam removed his hand and she turned to face him.  His eyes were a little wide, his jaw working, making the muscle in his cheek bulge.  His eyes skimmed her face and she guessed that she looked just as shocked.  She could feel the acid in her stomach churning as she considered the situation.  Dean was loose.  No.  The demon was loose.  The one that had spent the last six hours threatening violence on them.

“We can’t let him leave,” Delilah whispered, absolutely sure that if Dean got out, a wake of violence would follow his every step.

Sam, frowned, his eyes glancing to the side as he did some quick thinking.  “Uh, okay.  If we shut down the main power, this place goes into lock down.  Nothing in or out.”

“How do we do that?” Delilah felt her uneasiness grow at the thought of being locked in with a monster after their blood, but this was their responsibility.  Cure him or kill him… those had been the options from the moment they had captured him in Beulah.

“There’s a master lever in the electrical room.”

“Alright.  You go turn off the power.  I’ll try to lure him away.  Make sure the coast is clear.”  Sam looked like he was going to say something, but Delilah put her hand up. “We don’t have time to argue about this.”

A tense second went by as Sam’s jaw clenched, his eyes boring into hers, but she glared right back – her face, her posture everything radiating her determination.  Finally, Sam grabbed her hand and closed her fingers around a plastic cylinder before turning around and walking off on silent feet towards the end of the hallway.  As he walked away, she saw him transfer the demon blade into his left hand.  He slowed and checked the blind spots quickly before turning the corner and disappearing.

Delilah took a steadying breath, glancing down at the empty syringe Sam had put in her hand.  With tight-lipped determination, Delilah tucked it into her jeans’ back pocket and pulled out her angel blade.  She glanced away inside the room at Ben’s sleeping form.  There wasn’t a moment to lose.  Who knew how long Dean had been out of the dungeon?  For all they knew he could already be gone.  There was no way to get Ben out first without risking Dean escaping.  The only way to keep Ben safe now, was to make sure Dean had no reason to even glance at this room if he passed by.  She quickly reached inside the room and switched off all the lights, plunging the room into total darkness.  She grabbed the doorknob and pulled the door closed, toggling the switch in the lock first so the knob would lock on the outside.

Sensing the prickling in her neck once again, she removed her shoes, tucking them under her arm, and made her way on stealthy socked feet to the end of the hallway in the opposite direction from Sam.  She didn’t want to attract Dean’s attention until she was well away from Ben’s room.  She strained her ears, trying to pick up any little sound that might betray Dean’s location in the bunker: a footfall, a door click, anything, but other than the quiet hum of electricity, the bunker was quiet.  She turned the corner carefully, aware that he could be lurking anywhere.  She was officially in the middle of the most dangerous game of cat and mouse she’d ever played.  She flinched to a stop when she heard a door open and then click shut again in the distant corridors of the bunker.  Sam wouldn’t be making that much noise, she knew, therefore it could only be one person.  Feeling the adrenaline shaking through her system, she rushed down the hallway.  Time to go taunt a demon.

She managed to make her way up the stairs and around the back hallway of the library, the block walls curving around the telescope hub, without hearing anything else.  The silence was feeling heavier with every step she took, wrapping tightly around her pounding heart and lungs, as she fought against its constriction.  Blood pounded into her head as she strained every sense, looking, listening and feeling all around her for a sign that he wasn’t sneaking up on her as she was trying to sneak up on him.

Just as she approached the junction with the hallway that lined the outside of the library and led to the kitchen, she heard the quiet sound of footsteps retreating and she froze.  Was that him?  Was it Sam?  The echoing, sound carrying quality of the hallways in this place made it impossible to know.  But it could be either one.  If it was Sam, it would draw Dean straight to him, if it was Dean, he was much too close to Sam’s destination.

“Come on, Sammy!” the sudden loudness of Dean’s call, reaching her through the open door to the main hallway made her heart stop and her stomach drop into her shoes.  “Wanna hang out with your big brother?  A little quality time?”

He was in the kitchen.  She had to get him away from there or he would hear Sam.  She had to act quickly, but couldn’t be too obvious or Dean would know it was a ploy.  Delilah dropped her shoes to the hard ground, one of the soles hitting the floor just right and sounding like a shotgun blast to her ears.  She reached inside the hallway and pulled the door to close it, stopping the wood from slamming into the frame, but letting the click of the latch give her away.  Quickly she ran forward, knowing Dean wouldn’t take very long to get there, and she ducked into the darkened shower room, pressing herself flat against the privacy wall on the inside.

Barely a moment later, she heard the door she had just closed click open, and she slammed her hand over her mouth to stop the startled choke from escaping her throat.  She listened to his quiet, unhurried steps, holding her breath as he walked right by the shower room entrance and stopped.  His shadow blocked out most of the light from the hallway, the darkness looming ever closer and she thought that even her heart had stopped beating in that millisecond moment that stretched on forever when she was convinced that the next footfall would echo inside the room with her.  The room that had no other exit.  She was trapped.  She tightened her quickly moistening grip on her angel blade, getting ready to pounce.

But when Dean’s next footfalls grew quieter, she knew he had moved on.  Delilah held back a dry sob and let out a quiet, relieved breath as his steps grew ever further.  She moved towards the opening, knowing that she could not stay hidden so long as Sam hadn’t done his part of the job.  She carefully peeked out into the hallway to be sure it was empty.  She moved towards the end, approaching the corner that led up to the garage on one end, or up to the infirmary at the other.  She figured the infirmary would be a good place to lure Dean.  It was a floor above where Sam had to be, and was one of the few areas in the bunker with two exits.  Within the room itself, there was also plenty of cover and hiding places.

She was about to move into the hallway when she heard the bang followed by the wood splitting crack of a door being kicked in.  She startled, nearly letting out a scream, but again catching it before it could escape.  It had sounded close.  Maybe one of the bedrooms?  Either her own or Dean’s from the sound of it.  If she ran across that hallway now, she risked being spotted by him.  She had to draw him down another way, or confuse him.  She turned back.  Aiming her mouth down the long back hallway she had just left, she hoped the echoes would carry down and Dean would head back that way, clearing her path to the infirmary stairs.

“Dean!” she called out without yelling, trusting the quiet bunker to carry her voice and trying hard to sound calm, “Stop fucking around.  It’s almost time for your next dose.”

Delilah didn’t wait around to see if Dean was going to appear through the open door by the library again.  She turned around quick, aiming to run up to the stairs, trusting her socked feet to be silent.  Which is when the lights went out.

Delilah stopped, mid-stride, blinded and disoriented suddenly in the complete darkness of the underground bunker.  Then, as the red emergency lighting came on, she heard Dean’s voice ringing out into the bunker again.

“Smart, Sam!  Locking the place down.  I get it!  But here’s the thing.  I don’t wanna leave!  Not until I find you.  So, congratulations guys, you just locked yourselves in here with me.  Let the death match begin.”

As his voice stopped echoing all around her, Delilah turned towards the end of the hallway, the bottom steps to the infirmary barely visible in the red glow.  She couldn’t hear Dean anymore and she worried that he had gone after Sam.  She had to get to the next hallway junction before she called out to him again so she could lure him upstairs and buy Sam enough time to get away from the electrical room.

She was about to cross the first hallway junction, the one with hers and Dean’s rooms.  She would have to be quick.  If he was still there, he would see her and come after her.  If he wasn’t, she would need to call out to him.  She was almost there when suddenly his boot and leg popped out as he took a step beyond the blind corner, barely a couple feet ahead of her.  She tried to stop, so she wouldn’t go crashing right into him as the rest of his body came into view but her socked foot slipped, and she found herself on her ass at his feet.

She scrambled to get back up, already running in the opposite direction as Dean’s quiet chuckle echoed around her.  “I spy with my little black eye, something about to die,” he said, barely containing his pleasure.

She turned the corner and headed back down the back hallway.  It was her best bet to get back to where she needed to be.  She would just have to go around the other way.

She glanced behind her as she neared the shower room entrance again, unable to stop herself from checking Dean’s progress. Her stomach clenched as she once again stopped dead.  He wasn’t following her.

_Shit, shit, shit! Where did he go?_

Delilah flattened herself against the wall, glancing left and right in a panic.  Why hadn’t he followed her?  Had he anticipated what she would do next and was right now moving into position to intercept her?  Or was he standing right around the corner back there waiting for her to run right into him again?  _FUCK!_

She fought the rising panic, trying to think logically, which way should she go?  She was paralyzed by her uncertainty, every way she looked and every plan she thought of ended in Dean catching her and snapping her in two.  The red lights made every corner, and every hallway connection glow with potential death, the intermittent emergency power making them pulse like a heartbeat.

She was running out of time.  If he had doubled back, he would be coming out of that door any second, and she didn’t want to be there when he did.  She turned around, deciding that her best bet would be to go back, attempt the infirmary hallway again.  She glanced back towards the library side, the hallway curving away into a blind corner, dark except for the red pulse.  She turned back to the T intersection ahead of her, empty and silent.  She moved towards it, glancing back again, not wanting to have Dean suddenly catch her from behind.  Still nothing there and she turned again, just a few feet from the junction.

Dean’s shoulders and head glowed softly in the red light as he stood in the center of the hallway.  As she stopped again, painfully aware that he was playing with her, and winning, she glanced down his right arm, her eyes landing on the hammer in his hand seconds before he brought it up and swung it at her head.  Delilah dropped to the floor, barely avoiding it and she scrambled back, crab-like, her angel blade scraping against the floor in her still tight fist, unable to tear her eyes away from the approaching shape that had emerged straight out of her worst nightmares.

She realized suddenly that she had been having this same dream almost since she had met him.  Dean, looming over her as she tried to get away, the hallways narrow and winding like a maze.  They had always been meant to end right here, in this moment.

“You can blame yourself for me getting loose, sweetheart.  All that blood you pumped into me, to make me human… the less demon I was, the less the cuffs worked.”  He chuckled as he took a step towards her, the hammer at his side again.  “And that devil’s trap?  I just walked right across it.  It smarted, but what’s a little pain?”

Delilah pushed herself to her feet, she was not going to go down cowering in front of him.  She held her angel blade to the side, ready to swing it at him, or plunge it into his fucking chest if he tried to attack her.  Dean tilted his head to the side, the red light illuminating his face for a moment.  “What?  No bullets this time?”

“We don’t have to do this, Dean,” she said, surprised that her voice sounded so steady considering her whole body felt like it was going to quiver to pieces.  “Just let me finish the cure and we can put this whole thing behind us.”

Dean started laughing, “You act like I _want_ to be cure!  Here’s a little secret…  I like the disease.”

Dean swung the hammer again, and Delilah barely had time to duck again to avoid the blow.  She lunged forward with her blade, but Dean deflected it at the last minute, side-stepping in the narrow hallway.  She swung at him back handed and she felt her blade connect with his wrist, making him drop the hammer, but then his other hand came up and caught her arm, slamming it against the wall, the pain in her hand making her drop the blade as she cried out.

Dean’s hand closed around her neck and he slammed her against the wall.  She saw stars as the back of her head hit the plaster covered concrete.  He pulled her away and slammed her again for good measure, then he bent down, keeping his hand on her throat, and picked up her blade.  Delilah felt the cold tinkling chill of fear running down her back to her tail bone as Dean moved closer to her, bringing his face right up close to hers.  He turned to the side and his stumbled cheek brushed against her, like a tender caress.  She froze as his face pressed against her neck and he took a deep breath.

“What the fuck are you doing?” she asked him, startled and confused.

“I get it now,” he said, his voice rumbling intimately in her ear.  “What the wolves were saying all those months back.  I can feel you getting excited, all those pheromones rushing through your body.  I can smell you getting wet, Lilah.  It’s like my face is fucking buried in your pussy.”

Delilah shivered in her dread.  “If you actually think I want you right now, you’re fucked in the head, Dean.”

“Oh, you want it,” he said, pulling his face back so he could look at her, his achingly familiar eyes drawing out the yearning in her heart.  “You crave the violence.  It’s all you ever wanted.  You’re still just daddy’s little whore, aren’t you?”

This wasn’t Dean… Not her Dean anyways.  This was an evil vile sonofabitch.  Delilah gathered what spit she could and let it fly right at his face.  The smile didn’t even slide off his lips as he brought up the hand holding the angel blade and he let her see its glistening tip before running it slowly from the base of her throat and down her chest between her breasts and still further down her stomach.  She felt him nick the edge of her belly button and she shook with fear and rage.  Like hell was she going to let him play with her.

“Do it, you fucking wad!  You think I care if you torture me?  I’ve been tortured by sadistic angels and demons alike.  I’ve been ripped apart and put back together again by Adriel and fucking Abaddon… What the fuck do you think you can do, that hasn’t already been done to me, you arrogant prick?”

Dean scoffed, “Abaddon, angels.  What the fuck do they know about torture?  Amateurs.”  He lowered his voice, whispering against her ear as he slowly squeezed the hand around her throat tighter.  “I was tortured by Alastair himself.  The things he did to me in Hell, you’ve never even dreamed of, even with all your… experience.”  He let the word linger then drew back a little so she could see his black demon eyes looking into her.  “And what he did to me… I did to others.  Soul after soul, racked and tortured as they screamed and begged for me to stop, until they were twisted and corrupted beyond recognition.  And now it’s your turn.”

Delilah’s knee swung up with all her strength aimed right where she could do the most damage, hoping to hurt him enough that he would loosen his grip and she could get away.  She felt it connect and though Dean grunted, he didn’t let go even for a second.  He laughed, no joy at all in the sound, nor in the pull of his lips.  “God, I love you…  just so much.  You never know when to just give up.”  His eyes flicked back to their human green irises, though the cornea glowed pink in the lighting.

The words angered her so badly, she nearly forgot what she was dealing with.  She let her rage explode out of her the only way she could.  “You fucking asshole.  You don’t love me.  You never did.  You’re just an arrogant, self-entitled prick who thinks he can do whatever the fuck he wants.”

“You’re so wrong, Lilah.  I’ve been falling in love with you for a while now: I loved you when you spilled your heart after Dodge City, every time you tried so hard to help me, and when I thought I lost you in Washington.  But, I never loved you more than when I tore you to pieces and kicked you out of my life.  Part of me still loves you now.  It’s like an itch I can’t scratch,” he finished with an angry sneer.

Delilah was stunned.  What the fuck was this?  What the hell was he talking about?  He had to be lying.  He was just fucking with her.  He had to be.

“I tried to forget you.  Tried to get as far away from you as possible.  I fucked every bar wench and stripper from here to Michigan and back and every time, all I could think about was how your legs wrap around me when I sink my cock into you, and the way you sigh my name.  Your blood pumping through me is like a fucking poison.  It hurts to be this close to you, Lilah.  But I think I figured it out.  I think I know how to cure this sickness.

“If I kill you,” Dean stepped even closer to her, digging one of his hips against her as the angel blade slid carefully between her skin and her jeans, the cold metal resting against the sensitive edge of where her pubic hairs began.  “Will my memories of you die too?  If you’re no longer in this world to torment and tempt me, to pull at me with those sighs and your thighs, do you think I could finally move on?

He brought his mouth down against her ear, his voice rumbling, “Or maybe, I need to fuck you one last time, first.  Really get you out of my system.”

Dean yanked back on the angel blade and Delilah cried out as she felt it cut into her skin and slice through the fabric of her jeans and belt.  The blade was replaced by the familiar feel of his warm hand as he slipped it into her panties to cover her sex.  He pushed his fingers into her roughly even as his head dropped onto her shoulder with a groan.  Delilah squirmed against him as much as she could, trying to get his invasive fingers out of her, her body still pinned against the wall, and his hand around her throat squeezed tighter.  She could feel him inside her, his fingers sunk in to his knuckles as he pushed into her harder and she squeezed her eyes tightly shut, still trying to push him away, even as her body began to respond to his familiarity: his groans in her ears, the smell of him in her nose, his fingers fucking her as her sex throbbed and squeezed him.  Shame flushed her cheeks as she thought about their bodies moving together erotically.  He was right about her: she wanted him.  Even with the violence and the threats, all she wanted was for him to make love to her again.

Suddenly, he pushed away from her, slamming her head back into the wall again, and he was gone.

She felt so raw, empty and shameful.  What did it say about her, that she couldn’t fight back against the asshole who manipulated her and used her for his own base needs?  What did it say about her, that she still wanted him?  Maybe deep down she even wanted him to hurt her.  He had been right about everything.  She had been broken by the abuse in her youth and she continued to be that broken, terrified little girl whose only purpose was to serve as a sex doll for the men in her life.

Alone in the back hallway of the bunker, Delilah felt herself spiralling out of control, her dark thoughts swirling ever closer and threatening to overtake her.  The darkness called to her.  She could feel it tightening its grip around her heart and lungs, snuffing the air out of her as effectively as Dean’s hand on her throat had.  Despair and pain, shame and worthlessness, all were tearing down the walls brick by brick with tendril-like fingers, tearing down the walls she had built to protect the poor damaged core of her self from ever being hurt again by abusive men.  She had let Dean in, and now the fortress was crumpling around her.

She slid down the wall, the pain in her chest unbearable.  Why hadn’t he killed her?

In the echoing distance of the bunker, she heard the slam of a door.  And then again, and again and she realized it was the sound of something hitting the wood, over and over.  It was impossible to tell where it was coming from.  She heard Sam’s voice bouncing around the hallways, suddenly.

“Dean!  Stop that!  I don’t wanna use this blade on you!”

The hitting sounds stopped for a moment and this time it was Dean’s voice she could hear.  “That sucks for you doesn’t it?  ‘Cause you really mean that.”

“If you come out of that room,” Sam yelled, his voice hoarse and strained, “I won’t have a choice!”

It sounded like Sam had trapped Dean somehow, but he was breaking out and with every swing of that hammer, and every impact on that door, the barrier protecting Sam from having to kill his brother was getting weaker.

Delilah struggled against her dark thoughts.  What had been the point of bringing Dean back here? Of pumping him full of her blood?  Of carrying her angel blade?  Saving Sam from having to kill his own brother.  All of it, was for Sam.  And now it was looking like Sam would have to finish the job after all, or die.

She felt a tingle, like something was fanning the little glimmer of fight that was still hanging on.  Somehow, the glow of the ember grew, nurtured by some unknown source, encouraging it to swell and banish the dark.  Her whole body felt like it was ablaze with it suddenly and she looked up, convinced that she was not alone in that hallway.  There was nothing there, but at her feet, impossibly, she saw a syringe, just waiting for her to finish what she had started.

She frowned as she reached for it.  She closed her fingers around the plastic casing and wondered how it had gotten there.  _Ok, ok…  shake it out.  Start again._ The words resonated in her head like someone had spoken them, but using her own inner voice.  She pushed off from the wall, reaching into her back pocket for the syringe she had put there before, and knowing already that it would be empty.  _I need to make this right, for Sam… and for the world.  It needs Dean Winchester…  whole._

She felt the glow spark and catch and suddenly she was filled with the undeniable purpose she had set out with from that church.  She had given herself the mission to save Dean, and she was going to finish what she had started, whether he wanted to or not.

In the distance, the hammer blows to the wood stopped and were replaced by a final clattering of shattered wood, and she turned her head that way.

“Sammy?” Dean called out after his brother.  Sam must have taken off then, before Dean could break out.  “Come on, Sammy! Let’s have a beer.  Talk about it.”

His voice was getting clearer, and Delilah guessed he was standing in the main hallway again.  Delilah closed her fist on the syringe and took off away from the sound, back to the end where Dean had appeared before.  This time, she wasn’t going to try to lure him up to the infirmary.  This time, she was going to find him and inject him.  She would cure him or die trying.

“I’m tired of playing,” Dean went on, and as she reached the end of the hallway and prepared to turn the corner, his voice sounded suddenly close and she held back.  “Let’s finish this game.”

She listened as he suddenly became very quiet, and she figured he wasn’t far off.  Either still in the next hallway or down one of the transverse branches.  She peeked around the corner quickly, but saw nothing in the red glow.  Quietly, she turned the corner and listened again, trying to pinpoint where he was.  And then she heard the sound of the hammer slamming against the wall, like it had when it had narrowly missed her head.  He was in the bedrooms hallway again.  And he wasn’t alone, she realized.

“Well, lookee you.”  Dean said, and Delilah turned the corner to a scene she had not expected.  “Do it,” he told his brother, who was holding the demon knife to his throat.  Sam had him dead to rights, the hammer embedded by the claw in the upper section of plaster wall.

Delilah stuck the plastic needle cap between her teeth and yanked it off, jamming the needle in her arm and quickly drawing another dose of blood.

“It’s all you,” Dean taunted.  She could see Sam’s face as it transitioned from survival, to uncertainty and then pain.  He couldn’t do it, Delilah realized.  Dean’s focus was entirely on Sam as he pulled away the blade, looking defeated.

Just as Dean was about to pounce on his brother, Delilah drew up to him from behind and stabbed the needle into his neck, squeezing the plunger, vein or no vein.  The effects were instant, Dean toppled into the wall, like the bunker had suddenly lurched under his feet and he shook his head.  He turned to look at her, his eyes rolling into the back of his head before he collapsed to the foot of the wall.


	19. Paint It Black

_I look inside myself and see my heart is black_

_I see my red door, I must have it painted black_

_Maybe then I’ll fade away and not have to face the facts_

_…_

_I could not foresee this thing happening to you_

Delilah stood over Dean’s inert body.  She stared down at him feeling the anger and the rage building up impossibly hot.  She felt she would explode just from the sheer venom she felt for the thing at her feet.  She wanted to scream and kick and sink her blade so deeply into his body that he would never rise again.

“Delilah?” Sam said, drawing her away from her murderous fantasies.

“I’m fine, Sam,” she cut him off, stopping him from asking what she did not want to answer.  Around them, the lights of the bunker continued to pulse, colouring the walls and floor with alternating shadows and red, oblivious to the fact that the chase was done.  From what she could see, Sam didn’t look injured.  She was a different matter, she knew, and she wanted to get away from him before he could assess her state and realize just how much damage the demon had done – physically and otherwise.  “Can you get him back to the dungeon?” she asked, hoping to divert his attention.

“Uh, yeah.  I think so.”

“Drag him if you have to.  What’s a couple bruises huh?”  Sam huffed and his lips pulled at the corner momentarily before looking down at his brother’s unmoving shape.  “I’ll get the bunker going again.”

Sam nodded and bent down to grab Dean’s arm.  Delilah waited until they were beyond the corner and then she turned towards her room.  She felt the sharp twinge of pain as the edge of her cut jeans shifted and pulled at her skin.  With a gasp, she pressed her hand to her injury only to feel the sharp pain again and the warm wetness of her blood.  “Damnit,” she muttered.

She headed for her room carefully.  There was no working lighting inside, the emergency lights only designed to guide the bunker inhabitants through the hallways, and she rinsed and bandaged herself as best she could with the pulses coming in through her open door.  She discarded her ruined clothes once more, and pulled on the first pair of pants she found foraging in her dresser.  She replaced the t-shirt she assumed was soaked in blood with a fresh one and then headed out to the electrical room.

It was down the hall that she noticed the supply closet door that had been reduced to splintered pieces of wood and she marvelled at what ploy Sam had used to trick his brother into getting trapped in there.  She went through the door at the end of the curved hallway, cursing the designers who had felt the need to put decorative steps everywhere.  The movement going up or down pulled at her slapped on patch of gauze and tape, sending twinges of heat like electric shocks straight to the tip of her spine.  It hurt.  It must have hurt, but all Delilah felt was the ghost of pain, like the ends of her nerves had been galvanized.

Behind the curved blue glass panel wall, that was casting an eerie shade of brown whenever the red pulse of light shone through it, she stepped down into the computer and electrical room, both the brain and heart of the bunker, the room from which all could be controlled.  She had wandered in there on one of the occasions the guys had left her alone while they hunted.  She had been in awe of the multiple units lining the wall and the master controller in the centre of the room then, the buttons and switches glowing brightly or blinking at regular intervals or simply off as they did what probably no one alive could understand fully anymore.

With the power cut, the consoles were eerily quiet and it felt to Delilah like she was standing in a room with dead bodies.  Time to Frankenstein this place back to life.  She walked across the room to the metal grill barrier behind which were the fuse boxes.  The lever on the largest of the boxes was down, so she grabbed it and pushed up until it clunked back into place flooding the room with bright white light, brighter than she’d ever seen this particular room, almost like the bunker was making up for the previous darkness.

“There.  That’s much better, doncha think?” she said to the room.  She walked back to the large computer module in the centre of the floor and she looked at the many flashing yellow and red buttons, many of which were unlit.  She found the cluster of buttons labelled “doors” and she pushed on them one-by-one until they were all turned off.  “Now, whenever Castiel gets his feathered ass here, he’ll be able to get in.”

Delilah stared at the console blankly, a black hole forming in her mind and sucking in all notions of thoughts and actions.  She was immobile like a marble statue, no more than a part of the décor of the bunker, with no responsibilities and no tasks depending on her to get done.  She wanted no more than to keep standing right there, staring at the computer sensors, blinking their own lost language.

Slowly, Delilah forced herself back to the moment and the job that no one else could do.  She pulled herself away from the computer’s hypnotic lights and made her way out the door on the other side of the room and down the stairs to the storerooms and dungeon below.

Sam was waiting for her, standing by the open shelves, leaning against them, one eye on the door and one on his brother’s still sleeping body.  He had tied him back up, strapped in with twice as much rope it seemed.  When she walked in, Sam straightened up like he was spring loaded.  His whole posture was tense.  Delilah guessed he was worried about the effect the cure was having on Dean.  Every time she injected him, he seemed to take more and more time to recover.  With the last dose, would he wake up human again?  Or would he die, his last actions to attempt to kill his brother?

“Do you think it’s asking too much to hope that he’ll sleep through to the end of this?”  Delilah asked Sam, her eyes drawn to Dean regardless of her nauseous aversion.  “I sure could use a break from his mind games.”  She moved into the dungeon itself, silently praising herself for not hesitating on the threshold, though she felt like turning and walking out again.  She looked over at Sam, who was back to dividing his attention between his brother and the door.  He was clearly expecting someone else to walk into the dungeon.  Delilah pulled out the chair beside the table and sat down, facing the room, stopping her eyes from sweeping too far to the left.  “I unlocked the main door for the angel…  whenever he decides to show up.”

“I’m here,” suddenly spoke the deep gruff voice of Castiel, personal guardian angel to the Winchesters, and master of the unexpected entrance.

Sam moved towards him right away, and clapped him on the shoulder, relief clear in his face and in his posture.  He didn’t quite lose all the stiffness in his shoulders, but part of the stress had dissipated, no longer weighing him down.  Delilah envied his trust and faith in the angel Castiel: to him, his arrival meant that everything would be alright again.  She wasn’t quite so confident.

“Hello Delilah,” he said to her, his blue eyes fixed and unwavering as always, “Thank you for the door.”

“You’re welcome,” she said, frowning at the angel.

“And for your information, my ass does not have any feathers.”

Sam’s surprised snort made her jerk her head towards him, but only for a moment as her confusion turned to shock.  “How the Hell did you know I said that?” she demanded of the angel.

In response, Castiel raised his hand to his head and tapped it with a finger.  “When you pray to me, I can hear.”

“Wait, what?  No, I didn’t pray to you!”

“Sometimes the soul reaches out in times of need.  In that moment, you thought of me as a way to resolve that need.  And when you spoke my name, it solidified that connection.”

“Alright, Cas.  Angel Radio 101 aside,” said Sam, his posture and face confident once more.  “What do we do about Dean?”

Delilah watched Castiel as he approached the unconscious demon cautiously.  He circled around the chair, his intense eyes never leaving Dean’s body as he assessed what he could with his heightened angel senses.  As he circled back around to the front, he laid his hand on Dean’s head and a bright glow emanated from the palm of his hand.  A moment later it was gone and Castiel stepped away again, coming to stand beside Sam.

“Thanks Cas.”

Delilah looked from Dean to Castiel and back again, “Is that it?  No last dose?”

“I only fixed what was damaged physically.  The demon is still alive, but barely.”  He turned towards Sam, and stretched his arm out, reaching for his slinged arm.

Sam flinched away, waving him off. “No, Cas.  Save your strength.  There’s someone else who needs to be healed more than me.”  Castiel’s eyes flicked towards her quickly and Delilah looked away, turning her attention to the final syringe on the table instead and preparing to extract the last of the necessary blood.  “Do you remember Ben Braeden?”

“Of course, the boy Dean lived with when you were in the cage.  What about him?”

“He’s asleep in one of the bedrooms here.  He came after Dean and he really did a number on the kid.”

“Alright, I can heal him too.”  Castiel once again reached for Sam and the bright light appeared again as he touched two fingers to Sam’s injured arm.

The relief on Sam’s face was undeniable as he pulled his arm out of the sling and rotated it every which way.  He unclasped the now useless black fabric like he had been thinking of doing nothing else for weeks.  The smile he gave Delilah was beyond radiant, and she twitched her lips in response, feeling his happiness, but unable to join in herself.

“What about your grace?  Are you back for good?” Sam asked.

“It’s a long story.  Crowley.  Stolen grace.  There’s a female outside in the car.”  Delilah and Sam exchanged a quick raised-eyebrow look before she went back to adjusting and readjusting the knife and the syringe, like moving them around would make it that the last dose was already done, and she could leave.  “Another time,” finished the angel.

A silence filled the room, unnatural quiet for four people in such proximity and it soon became uncomfortable, packed with everyone’s worries and fears about the situation.  After a tense moment, Sam spoke up, his eyes on Dean’s bent head.

“What the hell are we doing to him, Cas?”  The angel shook his head as though unable to answer Sam’s question.  “I mean, even after we gave him all that blood, he still said he didn’t want to be cured… that he didn’t want to be human.”

“Well,” Castiel finally answered, his voice gentle and comforting, though what he had to say wasn’t.  “I can see his point.  You know, only humans can feel real joy but… also such profound pain.  This is easier.”

Easier.  The word bounced around inside her skull like a loose superball.  What would it be like to lose the pain she felt in her soul, to not feel so burdened by everything that had happened to her and that continued to happen to her beyond her control?  No hurt, or shame?  Just doing without consequence or guilt.  _Must be nice,_ she mused to herself a moment.  But then, to also not feel joy?  Delilah tried to think back to a time when the word joy had made sense to her.  Her world had been so topsy turvy for so long…  Could she really say she had felt joy in the last year?  In the last five years?  She looked up at Dean, his face at rest and looking so young, so carefree.  If she had felt joy, she knew that those moments had been in Dean’s company.  She had been happy… with him.  A chill seized her like an icicle to the brain.

_You’re nothing but an easy fuck, Delilah.  That’s all you ever were._

_I’ve been falling in love with you for a while now._

Even if the cure worked, what kind of weight would his actions of the past few weeks add to his shoulders?

_What is it you see, Lilah?  When you look at me.  What do you see?_

_You think you can save me?  You think this_ thing _is just another monster you can destroy?  This_ is _me._

What wouldn’t she give to not feel a thing right now?  A movement out of the corner of her eye attracted her attention and she turned only to find Castiel staring at her.  She looked away quickly, glancing at her phone and saw that they were creeping up on the end of the hour.  “It’s time guys,” she said, dreading what would come next, but glad to have something to do and relieved that it was now almost over.

Sam took a deep breath, looking at each person in the room one after the other: the angel, the demon and then her.  He walked over to stand beside her, glancing down at the simple tools as though to check for himself that everything was in order.  He walked her through the final step of the ritual and Delilah repeated the Latin phrase until Sam was satisfied that she had it perfectly.  Then it was showtime.

“We’re right here, Delilah.  Not going anywhere.”

Delilah nodded to Sam, then moved to stand in front of Dean, looking down on his bowed head.  Her mind wandered, searching for anything that would distract her away from what she had to do.  So close to the conclusion of this labour, her brain stalled, lost for a moment in staring at the longer than usual hair on Dean’s head – it was combed to the side, in a way she had never seen him style it, though it was a little dishevelled, like he had run his hands though it.  Then, she squeezed the handle of the knife in her left hand, lined up the syringe with her bruised veins and drew the last thirty MLs of blood.  She was feeling decidedly woozy now; the exhaustion, the blood letting, the fight, everything that had happened that night, all of it on the heels of an exhausting search, and before that the Wendigo hunt… she could feel that she was almost done.  She wanted nothing more than to sleep for a week, maybe even sleep forever.

She looked down at Dean again – first things first.  She bent down, running her hand down his warm forearm, and rolling it to the side as best she could with the new ropes.  The edge of her thumb caught the raised form of the Mark of Cain and she recoiled at the feel of it.  She gripped his wrist tightly, in case he woke up and decided to be an ass, and, homing in on the vein, she jabbed the needle in and injected the last dose.

Dean moaned, but barely.  His own energy must be pretty drained if that was his only reaction, she thought, thinking about how he had described the cure as boiling his blood.  “Sam?” she called him over and he stood behind his brother, facing her.  He nodded grimly at her before putting his hands on either side of Dean’s face, pulling back so his mouth was accessible.  She looked down at him and choked back a sudden sob.  All the different versions of Dean that she had known in the time she had spent with him flashed in front of her as she looked down at his achingly familiar face.  The cut on her pelvis gave an aching throb.  So much pain.  He had hurt her deeply, and like the cut from the angel blade, his words were going to leave a deep scar.

His eyelids started to flutter as though he was trying to open them and was finding it impossible.  “Exorcizamus te,” Delilah spoke, not taking her eyes off him.  “Omnis immundus spiritus.  Hanc animam redintegra, lustra.”  Dean’s eyes finally opened, and she stared down into the depth of their black emptiness as she cried out, “Lustra!” again and drew the blade of the knife across her right palm slitting it open.  She pressed her bleeding hand against Dean’s mouth, refusing to look away even when they were engulfed by a bright white light emanating from inside him.  A high-pitched keening was all she could hear, as though someone had clapped their hands over her ears and stunned the drums.

When the light dimmed and dwindled, Delilah took her hand away and stepped back.  Sam let go of Dean’s head and came back around.  He lost no time taking Delilah’s cut hand gently and pulling her back to where he had left the med kit.  She let him wrap her cut in layer after layer of gauze, but then pulled away quickly the moment he was done, the whole time avoiding his eyes.

“Dean?” Castiel said, taking a careful step forward.

Sam and Delilah turned their heads quickly to stare at what the angel had fixated on.  Dean was slowly raising his head, the black demon eyes ever there in the centre of his face.  _It didn’t work_ , Delilah thought with growing despair.  All that work and for what?  Sam grabbed his flask of holy water and quickly unscrewed the cap, taking a careful step towards the demon.

Then, the black seemed to melt away, dissipated like mist in the sunrise and the green eyes looking around the room were Dean’s again.  He winced, shaking his head with a gasp before looking up again, his eyes avoiding the people in the room like he was seeing something that wasn’t there, and he looked…  so lost.  Delilah could feel the tug to comfort him pull at her and she instantly felt queasy and turned away.

“You look worried, fellas,” she heard him say, his voice making her grit her teeth together.

Neither Sam nor Castiel were saying anything, and Delilah looked up just in time to see Sam extend his arm and send a belt of holy water at his brother’s face.  Dean closed his eyes and pursed his lips in reflexive insult, but quickly the look was chased away by realization and shock.

Sam could barely contain his smile as he spoke to his cured brother, “Welcome back, Dean.”  Castiel was smiling too, in his subtle angel way, and Delilah had had enough of the room being filled with warm and fuzzies.

“Welcome the fuck back,” she threw at Dean as she turned her back on him and walked straight out of the dungeon and out into the hallway, leaving room 7b and its freak show of twisted emotions behind her.  She could just scream her frustration and disgust and other emotions she couldn’t quite name assaulting her from every direction and the dizziness from the blood loss was doing its best to keep her disoriented.  Before she knew it, she had made it up the stairs and was standing by the opening that led to the war room.  In front of her was the still open door to the electrical room.

Her cut made her wince and she pressed her hand against the bandage under her shirt.  Her hand came away moist with blood.  “For fuck’s sake,” she mumbled in frustration and pain.  Ignoring the persistent throbs, she opened the door to her right and slowly climbed up the curved staircase that would lead her to the infirmary’s back door.

Standing in front of the old, dust-and-humidity-stained, full length mirror, the row of rickety, metal framed hospital beds reflected behind her, Delilah removed her t-shirt and pulled off the bandage she had half-assed in the dark.  It was gummy and pulled at the loose edges of her wound.  She looked around the room at the various supplies in the cabinets looking for something to hold the edges together.  All she could find was old yellowed gauze and some tape.  She did find more surgical tools, but she was pretty sure she would pass out if she tried to stich herself closed.

In the last cupboard, the one closest to the main door, she found newer looking supplies.  “Thank you, Sam!” she mumbled as she pulled out a modern plastic rubbing alcohol bottle, butterfly stitches, cotton balls and sterile gauze pads.  She brought her bounty to the mirror and laid them down on the counter within arm’s reach.  Soaking a cotton ball in rubbing alcohol, she cleaned up the seeping blood as best she could, letting out tense curse words every time the liquid came into contact with the open wound.  _It doesn’t look too bad_ , Delilah tried to convince herself, frowning at the perfectly straight cut.  If it hadn’t been so deep, the angel blade probably wouldn’t have even left a mark wider than a pencil tip.

The blood started seeping again and she quickly used the butterfly stiches to bring the edges together and hold them there.

“I could heal that for you,” said the deep gravelly voice from the back door making Delilah startle.

She gave him a scathing look before turning back to closing the slash.  “I didn’t pray for you.”

“No,” the trench-coated angel said, taking a step closer but keeping his distance.  “But I do have more sensitive hearing than the average human.  I assumed you might like help.”

“Well, you assumed wrong,” Delilah mumbled as she reached for the large adhesive gauze pads and tore open the wrapper.  She lined it up using the mirror and then pressed down on the edges.  “Is everything taken care of downstairs?” she asked him as she grabbed her t-shirt and pulled it down to cover her torso again.

“Yes.  Sam brought Dean back to his room and I was able to heal Ben.”

Delilah stared at him a moment, noticing distractedly that he wasn’t wearing his usual blue tie.  She tapped the side of her head.  “What about his memories?”

Castiel looked away, staring at a point on the wall, but otherwise remaining unmoving, like a statue.  She had forgotten how still he stood.  “I don’t know if I can undo the block on his memories.  The way things are, with Heaven, and the other angels.  That kind of power is in short supply.”

“What do you mean?” she asked him, genuinely curious.  The last she had heard was that Metatron had returned the angels to their home after they had jumped ships.

“While Dean was confronting Metatron, I broke into his office.”

“In Heaven?”

“No.  The gates remain closed.  Metatron lied about returning the angels to Heaven.”

“Fuck,” Delilah thought about all the stranded angels.  What would they do now?  “Did you get the angel tablet back?”

“No.  I destroyed it to weaken Metatron.  But I was too late to save Dean.”  Castiel’s eyes turned sad as he looked away again.  “I was able, however, to expose Metatron’s true nature to the angels he had gathered.”

“So, what?  They’re back to worshipping you?”

“Um, no.  I’ve been in self-exile since they jailed Metatron.”

Delilah frowned.  “Why?  I would’ve thought they’d want you back…  be their leader, whatever.”

“Defeating Metatron, weakened me.  The grace I stole from Theo was nearing the end of its… effectiveness.  I didn’t think my presence would be welcome.”

“But you’re all better now?  Crowley.  Stolen grace.  A female in the car?”

“Yes.  Exactly.”

Delilah nodded then shook her head in disbelief.  What a cluster fuck this angel soap opera was.  “So, who’s leading the angels, now?  Hannah?”

“They all are.  A sort of self-governing body.  They make decisions together.  It’s quite revolutionary for my kind.”

“I’ll bet.  So, what are the angels up to nowadays?  If they can’t return to Heaven…  what will they do?”

“What we’ve always done.  Tend Heaven’s garden.”

“What does that mean?”

“There are many classes of angels, some, like cupids, encourage fate by nudging together pre-ordained couplings.”

“Okay…  gross.  My free will just took a massive hit right there.”

A tiny knowing smile twitched Castiel’s lips so fleetingly, Delilah couldn’t be sure it was anything more than her imagination.  Castiel continued his explanation.  “Arch angels, the Grigori and Seraphim are the defenders, warriors charged by God to keep all creation safe.  And you have the largest group of angels who are charged with tending to the souls of the dead in Heaven”

“Which one are you?”

“I’m a Seraph.  A soldier.  I fought in the great wars between Heaven and Hell, protecting humanity from Lucifer’s corruption.”

Delilah raised her eyebrows.  He seriously needed to get a new wardrobe if he was going to go around claiming to be a badass warrior of Heaven… the trench coat just wasn’t doing it for her.  “So, I know that Heaven’s gates being closed means that even the souls of the dead can’t get in, so what exactly are the angels tending now?”

“New souls cannot enter Heaven, but the souls that are already there need the angels to power their cells.  Without them, the cells will fail which will send the souls of the dead back on Earth.”

Delilah blinked blankly.  “How many souls are we talking about here?”

“All of them.  Since the dawn of man.”

Silence crushed in on them, Delilah doing her best to understand what was unimaginable.  If the souls fell to Earth… where would they go?  What did it mean for the veil?  Already it was getting saturated with the souls that were trapped there by the closed gates.  The consequences of Heaven failing were unfathomable.  “So, angels can power that shit up from down here?”

“Yes.  But it requires much more concentration.  We all need to work together.  A concerted effort.  We need all the angels to contribute, every rogue out there is not only withholding energy from Heaven, but also drawing from it for their own use.”

“Is that what the “female in the car” is all about?  Gathering rogues?”

Castiel nodded.  “We were tracking down Daniel and Adina when Sam called me.  Now that Dean is cured, I need to get back to the mission.  Daniel hinted that Alariel had been with them for a time.”

_I am not a child, I’m an angel.  Do you really think angels don’t know about devotion?  Obedience?_

Neithan?  Why was he staying away?  He was supposed to go with the angels.  What had happened to change his mind?

“There you are!” Sam called out from the door, making Delilah startle around to look at him.  He was looking tired, but he had lost some of the frown lines that had taken up residence on his face since she had found him in Michigan.

“How’s he doing?” Castiel asked him.

“He’s uh…  He’s still a little out of it.  But better… I think.  This whole thing – the blood cure and the…  all of it.”  Delilah turned away when Sam tried to catch her eye.  “Really wrecked him.”

Delilah huffed, stopping herself from making a snide comment that would just attract more attention to what had happened in the red-lit hallways, what she would prefer to forget, or at the very least ignore.

“On the plus side,” Sam went on, “he’s hungry, so I’m just gonna go pick him up a big ol’ bag of crap food, and stuff it in his face myself,” he said with a chuckle and a smile that wanted to warm Delilah’s heart, but it was like a wall of ice had formed under her rib cage and it couldn’t reach her.  Nothing could.  “You mind, keeping an eye?” he finished, nodding his head back towards the main staircase that led back down to the rooms on this side of the bunker.

Castiel agreed and he moved towards the open door behind Sam.  He stopped before heading down the steps and turned back towards them.  “You realize, one problem is solved, but one still remains.  Dean is no longer a demon, but the Mark of Cain, that he still has, and sooner or later that’s going to be an issue.”

A sudden chill made Delilah cross her arms and hold herself.  Talking about the Mark was not on her top five conversations list.  She glanced at Sam, and suddenly he was looking as weary as he’d looked the rest of the week.  _Sam and his brave faces,_ she mused.

“You know what, Cas? I’m beat, man.  One battle at a time, you know?  So, I’m just gonna go grab my brother some cholesterol.  And then I’m gonna get drunk.”

Delilah looked at him with renewed attention.  That was not like Sam at all.  She was the one who dealt with her issues by getting drunk.  Something she had in common with the older Winchester, not Sam.  He was always in control.  Castiel nodded and disappeared around the corner and down the stairs.  Delilah watched him until he was gone and then she turned her attention to Sam who regardless of his claim to be getting Dean some junk food, was still standing between her and the door, looking off to the side, his eyes unfocused.

“Sam?” she called to him, concerned.

“We did it, Delilah.  We actually did it.  We got him back.”

A strange fever lit up Sam’s eyes as he turned his head to look right at her.  A slow, dumbfounded smile pulled at his lips and he looked so youthful suddenly, so light and carefree.  He moved towards her, two strides of his long legs and he was standing right in front of her.  Delilah startled like a frightened rabbit but then his arms were around her, no awkward sling between them, and he held her tightly against his chest, forcing her up onto her toes even though he had bent down to accommodate her short height.  It hurt her cut to be stretched as it was, and she hoped the butterfly stitches would hold.  She lay her hands on his waist, feeling the heat of him through his shirt.  Her insides began to vibrate like her whole body wanted to shake apart and she could feel her eyes trying to over water.  _Get it the fuck together you fucking baby!_

“Thank you,” Sam said, his voice muffled by her shoulder.  “I don’t think I could’ve done it without you.”

“Of course, you could.  If anything, I slowed you down.  You’re the expert here.  I’m just a rookie with a big attitude.”

Sam straightened up, looking down at her, his eyes bright and alive, twinkling with unspoken excitement and Delilah wondered what was going on in his head.

“No.  I was spiralling.  I had leads but everywhere I looked all I could see was red.  I was so angry.  I was lost,” Sam raised his hand and gently stroked her face with the back of his fingers, his thumb caressing her cheek, “but then you found me.”

Delilah felt the surge of panic swell through her system as he closed his eyes and leaned in towards her.  She shrugged away from his hand and pulled out of his embrace feeling ashamed.  This was all her fault.  She had kissed Sam when she had been too stone drunk and stupid to stop her impulses and now he was…  oh God.  What had she done?

“Sam, stop.”

“What’s wrong?” he asked, reaching for her again but she turned her body away from his inviting touch.  She squeezed her eyes shut, repercussions of her actions so clear, and so painful.  She was about to lose everything because she couldn’t keep it in her own fucking pants.

“I fucked up, Sam.  I’m so sorry.”  She wrapped her arms around her middle trying to hold herself together.

“Delilah, whatever it is, we can work it out.  I lo…”

“Oh God!” she cried out, tears breaking free from her eyes and trickling down her cheeks. “Don’t say it.  Please don’t say it.  I’m begging you.”  The hurt animal keening couldn’t be coming for her.  “I can’t.  I can’t do this, Sam.”

Delilah spotted the open door of the infirmary, a welcome escape from the suffocating pillow that was wrapped around her head.  She just had to get past Sam and she could get away from that room, from the bunker, from the knowledge that Dean was somewhere in there while she was with his brother.  She had to get away from it all.

She made a break for the door, but Sam caught her and pulled her into his arms again.  She struggled against him, but he held on tight and suddenly the flood gates opened and she was sobbing loudly against his chest.  He relaxed his hold a bit and swayed with her, one hand petting her long hair while the other held her against him.

“Ssh, it’s okay, Delilah.”

“I can’t,” she repeated, nothing else coherent enough in her befuddled mind for her to express it.

“I know.  It’s okay.”  Sam paused, and all she could hear was the beating of his heart, her ear pressed to his ribcage.  “Just, please don’t leave again,” he whispered against her hair.

God.  She couldn’t even give him that.  “I have to go.  If I stay here, it’ll kill me.”

Sam sighed deeply and gave her a final squeeze before letting his arms fall back to his sides.  Delilah took a step back and wiped away the last of the tears on her face with the back of her hand.  She couldn’t look at him.  This whole thing was so unfair to him.  Part of her kept screaming at her to let him kiss her, just so he wouldn’t hate her.  How far was she willing to go to not lose her best friend?  The shadow world the mirror curse had planted in her mind like a seed suddenly swelled and grew and she was overwhelmed with the memory of fucking Sam on that motel bed, the whole time feeling dead inside, just like she had felt every time her father’s disgusting pervert friends had molested and raped her.

Sam deserved so much better than a fake girlfriend who destroyed everyone she cared about because she was just too chickenshit to be alone again.

The oddly familiar sound of keys jingling together drew her from her melancholy thoughts and she looked up.  Sam’s hand was outstretched and in it was a small keyring with two keys and a shiny metal disc engraved with symbols at the ends of four crossed lines like a star.  She held out her hand and Sam dropped the keys into it.

“I got new keys done for the Dart.  I know a guy in Indiana, no questions asked.”

“Sam, I can’t take your car.”

“It’s not mine.  It’s yours.”

Delilah closed her fingers around the gift, trying to hold back her tears again.  Sam had known all along that she wouldn’t stay.  Why else would he have had the keys with him?  He was telling her goodbye.

He moved past her, heading to the stairs.

“Sam,” she called out to him.  He stopped and turned his head towards her, but without looking at her.  “It’s not forever, okay?  It won’t be like last time.  Just give me a couple days to get my head right.”  Sam didn’t say anything, and she sighed, knowing that it might already be too late to salvage what shred was left of their bond.  “I’ll call you.”

“Okay,” was all he said before disappearing beyond the doors and down the stairs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OH GOD! I'm so sorry Sam! :-..(


	20. Good Times Bad Times

_She swore that she would be all mine and love me 'til the end,_

_But when I whispered in her ear, I lost another friend._

Ben held his right arm out the open window as the car sped down the northbound lane of the highway.  The air was a little chilly, but the sun beating down on the windshield kept the cold at bay and the purr of the engine drifting inside was worth it.  Besides, what was a little cold on his skin after all the fucking horseshit he’d been through lately… although even he had to admit his life had reached a whole new level of fuckery in the past couple days.  Scratch North Dakota off his future vacation destinations for fucking sure.

Ben focused his eyes on his fingers as he splayed them, letting the air whirl around each digit.  He imagined the air had colour and was wrapping him in delicate silk ribbons, the feel of it like a caress.  The more he looked, turning his wrist so the wind brushed his upwards palm, the more those colourful tendrils took shape.  They were red, he realized calmly as they wrapped in close to his skin like a latex glove.  Red like blood, his mind informed him, and suddenly what had been a playful, calming thought turned horrifying.  The red tightened around his hand and squeezed it numb as the blood dripped from the tips of his fingers.  _Your fault_.  The scratchy, dry paper crinkling sound of his inner voice accused him.  He looked up from his bloody hand to find that he was in the motel room with his mother’s eviscerated corpse.  He squeezed his eyes shut, but the image expanded, and he was looking at the bloody torso on the previously white industrial tile of the police station.  _Your fault_.  His hand felt tight, the tendrils wrapping around it, squeezing to the point of cutting off his blood circulation.  He gasped, unable to hold in the pain, and he opened his eyes to find his hand closed in a tight fist and going white.  He regained his control and released his fingers, letting them open shakily as he pulled his hand back inside the car.

“How’re you doing, k… Ben?”

Ben didn’t answer her.  Why should he?  He didn’t owe the psycho bitch a damn thing.  _She saved your life_.  Fuck that.  Who asked her to?  _She’s being kind to you_.  Memories of the past twenty-four hours flickered in his mind: her putting the ice to his face, her bringing him back to that weirdo headquarters, her getting that angel thing to heal him.

God, that was such a mind fuck.  He remembered the last beating he’d gotten in Detroit: three of the bigger dicks in the boys home had kicked the shit out of him.  His face had taken over a week to heal the black eye and his chest and stomach were black and purple for even longer, finally turning to a sickly green before disappearing.  But now…  One touch of that weirdo freak’s finger and he felt better than he’d felt in a long time.  It was like someone had wrapped him in a cocoon of soft blankets, like a baby in a crib.  The sense of well-being had even gone beyond physical comfort: he had felt the anger and fear and hurt just drift away from his mind where it had been roosting and festering for years.  He almost thought the fucking guy had erased his memories, again. _Trapped away in your noggin’, that’s a cruel little angel trick._  But then slowly, the events of the past few days had started creeping back in, and his heart was weighed down once more.

Sam had asked the trenchcoat douchewad to remove the block on his memories, but he had claimed he couldn’t do it.  Like hell.  More like wouldn’t do it, the fucking dick.  If Ben was being honest with himself, he was kind of relieved.  Who knew what terrible things had been locked away inside his mind?  Or worse…  What if the memories weren’t bad at all?  He couldn’t shake the look on the murderer’s face when he had seen him, his brother’s arm helping to support him as they had walked across the room.  That whole morning had been like something out of a crazy sci-fi movie.

 

Ben woke up with his face throbbing and his ribs hurting.  His whole body felt like it was stuck under a baking hot sun.  And his bladder was gonna explode.  He was so completely disoriented.  Why was the room so fucking dark?  He was sure he had left a light on, but now the only light in the room was coming from the space around the door.  Luckily, he was kind of an expert when it came to waking up in dark rooms and not remembering which bogus nowhere town USA he and his mom were in.  He felt around gingerly for the edge of the bed and headed straight out the door and into the bright hallway.

That Delilah chick had told him which way to go for the bathroom, and he headed that way, keeping one hand on the wall to hold himself up as his ribs radiated pain with every step he took.  His face throbbed painfully from the swelling.  He managed to make it up the stairs, though the going was slow.  He slinked around the weird twisty hallway until finally he found a room that was unmistakably a washroom.  Looked like a damn high school gym shower room, but it had a place to piss and that was all that mattered to him at this point.

No longer distracted by the need to relieve himself, Ben stood in the long, empty hallway and searched for a window or a door that might lead outside, but there was nothing.  The place was like an underground Nazi bunker, minus the paraphernalia.  Actually, there was nothing on the walls other than the building signs for various hidden air conduits and pipes.  The place was as cold and industrial as a hospital, or a jail… except those other places had a fucking window here and there.  Who the fuck chose to live in a place like this?

Standing there, Ben decided that he had two options: go back to his room and try to sleep, or explore.  Though his teenage hormones and aching body called for the first option, his adventure-seeking, comic-book-reading curiosity had him roaming the long white tiled hallways in search of treasure and wonders.

He was rewarded for his curiosity when the wooden doors and white tiles eventually opened up to a large room that was beyond his wildest dreams and imagination.  He vaguely remembered it from the night before, but until he had stumbled up the couple steps again, he had thought he had dreamed it.  Blue curved glass wall, industrial iron inlay and intricate railings along the curved staircase and upper balcony thing, backlit panels like frosted windows, old ass electronics all along the walls, and that table in the middle – lit up map of the world with the chairs all around ready for the ultimate plotting and world take-over session – Ben felt like he had stepped right into an evil lair from his favourite comic books.

 

Ben could remember the feeling of awe that had almost blotted out the pain completely.  Then, Sam had come shuffling into the room with his arm around the evil asshole who was responsible for everything wrong in his life.  Dean had looked up and their eyes had met and the fucking asshole dared to look ashamed, sad.  Far from the evil he had emanated the day before when he had beat him to shits, he had just dropped his eyes again and looked away. Ben’s overwhelming rage had chased away his light mood, his fists clenching tight.  Sam had said something, but his brain had gone all red splotches and high-pitched steam whistle sounds.  Before he knew it, they had crossed the room and disappeared and he was left alone with the trenchcoat, who had come in following behind the brothers.

He had turned out to be the angel thing the bitch had told him about before, the one that could heal him.  He had done his magic touch or whatever and Ben had been healed and then he had shuffled off too, leaving him alone.

 _Healed_ , Ben mused sitting in the passenger seat, _what bullshit_.

He had gone back to exploring the lair afterwards, but though he was no longer in pain, the joy and wonder had gone out of it and his thoughts had been consumed once again by the same compulsion he’d been feeling for a week: kill Dean Winchester.  It hadn’t helped that the room he had found had weapons all over it.  Every new blade he saw became the weapon he’d use to rid the world of Dean Winchester.

Eventually, Sam had walked back into the room, his booted footsteps resonating on the hardwood floors.  After some meaningless question about how he was feeling and what kind of food he liked and whatever bullshit, he had turned around and walked up the staircase and out a heavy looking door.

Ben’s rage had reached a peak and he had grabbed one of the swords… a fucking sword!... and he had started off down the hallway Sam had come from.  If Dean was on his own, he could do it.  He had looked weak when Sam had practically dragged him across the room.  Now was the time.

A quick stalk down the main hallway and he had heard voices talking.  He had moved closer, trying to step quietly, and the sounds had turned into words.  He had recognized the gravelly voice of the trenchcoat angel, as well as the voice of his target.  He had pressed himself against the wall beside the open door.  He would wait for the angel to leave and then he would attack.

“What did Sam say?  He want a divorce?”

“I’m sure Sam knows that whatever you said or what you did, it wasn’t really you.  It certainly wasn’t all you.”

“I tried to kill him, Cas.”

“Dean.  You two have been through so much.  You’re brothers.  It’d take a lot more than trying to kill Sam with a hammer to make him want to walk away.”

“You realize how fucked up our lives are that that even makes sense?”  A soft chuckle and then silence.  “What about…  Ben and…”

“They’ll be alright.  They need time.  Just like you.”

“Time.  I fucked up, Cas.  I don’t know if any of this can even be fixed.  Then again…”

“Then again what, Dean?”

“Nevermind.  I’m beat, man.  Not making much sense.”

“Maybe you should… take some time before you get back to work.  Allow yourself to heal.  The timing might be right.  Heaven and Hell – they seem reasonably back in order.  It’s quiet out there.”

The angel had come out of the room without warning, startling Ben, and his eyes found him beside the door right away and flicked down to the bare blade in his hands.  Without a word, Castiel had pulled the door shut and had given Ben a look that had made him lose all his resolve again.  Castiel had held out his hand, and Ben had found himself handing the sword over to him.  _The fuck?_

Then, the angel had just left – his coat tails moving out of sight in a billow as he had turned the corner and Ben had felt confused and lost and unsure of what he wanted.  Which is when he had seen that Delilah chick at the other end of the hallway.  She had glanced his way then pushed open a door and disappeared into a room.  He had approached it carefully, his eyes avoiding looking at the door Castiel had closed behind him, hiding Dean away from sight.

Delilah had been packing, and in the fewest words possible she had told him she was leaving and he could come with her if he’d like.  Anywhere had seemed better than that windowless prison with its walls beginning to close in on him, even if it meant spending time with crazy there.

And here he was.  Sitting in a bright blue classic muscle car with the engine rumbling away and a wack job chick who had held a gun to the back of his head not even a week before.

“You hungry?” she asked him, breaking the silence between them again. “I need to stop for gas, I can grab something if you like.”

“I’m good,” Ben grumbled even as his stomach growled uncomfortably.

Shaking her head, she pulled the car off the highway and down a broken road a half mile or so before pulling up to a lonely Gas N Sip, its presence a pimple on the open plain landscape.  Ben gritted his teeth.  Those things were everywhere.  She drew up to one of the gas pumps and with a few pulls of levers and shifter, she turned the engine off and rolled out of the car.  Ben stared out of the side window at the complete lack of things to look at and felt annoyed.  The sun annoyed him, the quiet engine annoyed him, the sound of her twisting off the gas cap annoyed him.  He closed his eyes a moment and the bright sunlight made the back of his eyelids glow bright red.  Red like blood.  Blood everywhere.  Bodies writhed and gurgled for help.  The cop lady’s dead eyes stared off to the side.  Blood, shit and piss in his nose.  An arm, casually draped over the edge of the desk, the fingers still splayed on a computer keyboard… blood dripping and skin shredded at the elbow where the rest of the body just wasn’t attached anymore.  Dark motel room flickered in and out, more blood.  His mother’s dead eyes stared off to the side.

Ben opened his eyes again, his breathing coming in short gasps as his heart pounded like he’d been running full out.  His skin was covered in sweat and his hands were shaking.  His head felt like it would explode and suddenly the car was too close, too confining and he pushed open the door and got out.  He shut the door and leaned back against the metallic blue side of the car, bending over as his breathing settled a bit and the fresh breeze dried off the sweat.

“You good?” Delilah asked him.

“Fuck off, bitch,” he mumbled, feeling that anger and resentment closing in around him for round two.

He pushed off from the car and started walking towards the Gas N Sip.

“Don’t wander off, ten minutes and we’re back on the road.”

“Whatever.  Gotta piss,” he told her as he jammed his fists into his jeans pockets and stalked off around the corner of the building.

Ben stared out at the open Nebraska field behind the Gas N Sip.  There were birds flying over the field in the distance and he watched the flock’s synchronized turns.  He wondered how it felt to be so connected to the other birds that they knew just where they were all going, no matter how random the change in direction seemed.  How would it feel to be that connected to another human being?  So fucking overrated.  Batman, Superman, Punisher, Wolverine…  Superheroes don’t need people.  They do what they have to do and get on with it.  He wasn’t gonna be a fucking pussy.  The breeze ruffled through the long grasses of the field, and the leaves of the outlying clumps of trees.  Slowly his mind settled back to ignoring the dead bodies and the blood and even his anger retreated to a quieter corner and the numbness settled back in.

He turned around again and started making his way back around the front of the building.  He turned the corner and the black clad man from North Dakota was standing there looking right at him.  His eyes were narrowed in the bright sunshine, but somehow the bright and cheery setting only made his entirely black attire all the more sinister.  Ben’s stomach dropped and he stopped dead in his tracks.  The last time he had seen the man, he had walked out of a police station that had been redecorated in cop guts.  He was almost one hundred percent sure that this man, who kept appearing and disappearing like it was nothing, was the one who had done it.

“Ben, how relieved I am to see you alive and well.”  His words lacked sincerity and set Ben on edge, his body tensing for a fight he doubted he could win.  Could he run away?  Unlikely, he decided.  “So, tell me, anything interesting happen since last we met?  I’m particularly interested in the demise of a certain Winchester.”

“He’s alive,” Ben said hesitantly, looking around to see if Delilah was nearby.

“That’s disappointing.  I had such high hopes.  I can see by your impeccable shape that the angel visited you.  Why, then, didn’t he restore your memories?”

“What’s to say he didn’t?”  The man’s lips stretched into a creepy evil smile that told Ben there was no point trying to bullshit him.  All Ben wanted to do was get away from the man, get back to the car and get the fuck away from there.  He turned towards the blue car and started to move away.

“Where is she taking you, then?  Did she tell you?”

Ben stopped and shook his head.  All she had said was South Dakota, but he wasn’t about to tell him.  “She said we were going to see her friend.  What does it matter?  Why would I tell you anything?”

“I could help you, Ben.  She’s just looking for the first opportunity to get rid of you.  But me… I can make sure that the next time you see Dean Winchester, it will be the day you kill him.  That’s what you still want, isn’t it?”  The anger and bloodlust filled Ben again, making him feel nauseous as his fists closed and shook at his sides.  “You really think that Delilah will help you do that?”

“She might.  She hates him too.”

“She doesn’t.  No one told you?  She’s his lover.  She could no more kill him than a spring lamb.”

His lover?  All this time he had assumed she was Sam’s bitch, but really she was Dean’s?  No wonder she wanted him out of the underground headquarters, she didn’t care about him, she was just protecting that monster!  “And where she’s taking you now, do you really think she’s looking out for you?  There’s a manhunt for you, Ben.  And it goes far beyond just North Dakota.”

“Bullshit.”

With his sly grin, the man raised his hand and snapped his fingers.  Inside the Gas N Sip store, the television suddenly changed channels and Ben’s mugshot appeared on the screen.  He took a step closer, his brain abuzz.  He couldn’t believe it.  The screen flicked back to a TV newscaster and he could just read the scrolling subtitles as they flashed some of the scariest shit he’d ever read: _manhunt_. _Extremely dangerous. Tips hotline._

Fuck!  fuckfuckfuck!  He hunched down and away from the large window like maybe it would make him unrecognizable to the clerk behind the counter, or to the person pumping gas nearby.  Suddenly every face was holding a phone, staring at him, calling in that he had been spotted.  The cops would come down on him any second, he could already hear the sirens echoing in the distance.  No!  He had to get away.

“That friend?  The one she’s taking you to see?  She’s a cop.  A sheriff.  Still think she wants to help you?”  He raised his hand again and with another click of his fingers the television went all static and snow.

“Why should I trust you?  You’re the reason they’re looking for me in the first place!”

“Because you and I share goals.  We both want Dean Winchester out of commission… permanently.  Our purpose is the same, and as such, it makes us allies.  I’ll make you battle ready so that the next time, you won’t fail.”

“Why?  Why waste time on me?  Why don’t you kill him yourself?”  The man didn’t answer, just kept looking at him steadily.  A chill ran down Ben’s spine as he looked into the eyes of the man and saw only emptiness.  “Who the hell are you?  The devil?”

The man could have said yes, and Ben would have believed him completely, but with a slow wicked smile and an incline of his head the man said simply, “I’m Crowley,” and he snapped his fingers one more time.

 

Delilah walked out of the Gas N Sip and breathed in the warming spring air.  The sun was shining, birds were chittering away in nearby trees.  Cars were zooming down the long road.  She should feel good, or at least relieved to not be in the bunker anymore, to not have to be near Dean and that shitshow.  And yet, all she could feel was a cold numbing around her heart.  She desperately yearned to be back in Sioux Falls, to be home again, to be sucking down a bottle of whiskey.

She glanced around the empty car lot, the Blue Devil the only vehicle left at the small pit stop station.  She could see that Ben wasn’t in the car and she let out a frustrated sigh.  Fucking kid was gonna slow her down.  She walked over to the car and swung open the door.  She tossed the plastic bag of road food onto the seat and closed the door again looking around.  She looked down the road in one direction and then the other trying to see as far as she could see, but no lanky teenage boy was making his way along the unpaved shoulder.

“I don’t fucking have time for this.  Kid’s gonna get a fucking tongue lashing,” she mumbled to herself as she walked away from the car again and headed towards the back of the building, figuring that maybe he was still in the can.  She found the two doors marked with the typical man and woman icons.

“Ben?” she called out, pounding on the door with the man.  She listened, but when she didn’t hear a reply, she hit the door again with the side of her fist.  “Ben, if you’re in there, speak the fuck up.”  Still only silence answered her.  She wrapped her fingers around the handle and tried to turn it, but it was locked.

With an exasperated sigh, she looked around at the empty field.  Again, there was no boy shape moving through the tall grasses.  Delilah shook her head.  The fucking kid took off.  She knew it in her gut.  Thankless punk.  She turned back towards the store, the movement pulling at her bandaged wound and she automatically pressed her hand against it.  She really didn’t have time to fuck around looking for him.  She was tired and all she wanted was to take a damn shower and sleep.

The tinkling of the bell over the door rang out and the cashier looked up at her from where she was sitting reading a novel.

“Heyah again!  Need somethin’ else?”

“No, uh.  Did you happen to see a teenage boy come in here?  Maybe he asked for the bathroom key or something?”

“Naw, I can’t say I did.  It’s been real quiet today.”

“Yeah,” Delilah said, turning back towards the door, “I didn’t think so.”

She took a calming breath, no sense getting all angry.  He could make his own damn decisions after all.  He’d been doing just that for a few years now anyways, hadn’t he?  He wasn’t her fucking responsibility.  She walked back out of the store and did a last, quick counter-clockwise circuit around the building, just in case, but he was really nowhere to be found.  She pulled her phone out of her pocket and hit the speed dial for Sam’s phone.  He picked up on the second ring.

“Hey!”

“Hey, Sam.  Ben took off.”

“Took off?  He ran away?”

“Yeah.  I went inside a gas station and when I came back, he was gone.”

“You think something happened to him?”

“No.  I wouldn’t say that.  If I had to guess, I’d say he hopped on with someone else and they high tailed it out together.”

“It’s possible,” Sam said, the sound of something clanking in a familiar way making her frown.

“Are you…  doing dishes?”  Delilah asked him, almost laughing at how normal that sounded.

Sam chuckled into the phone, and the numbness around her heart released its hold for a moment.  “Yeah.  I do that sometimes.  I wouldn’t worry about Ben.  He’s gotta deal with everything his own way…  we all do.  If you say it doesn’t look like he’s in trouble, then I say leave him be.  He knows where he can find us if he needs us.”

Delilah had made it back to the Dart and she leaned back against the door, wrapping her free arm around her waist.

“I’m glad you called.”

Delilah scoffed, “I just left a couple hours ago Sam.  You can’t already be missing me.”

“It’s quiet here.  Cas left a little after you and Dean’s asleep. Or pretending to sleep.”

Delilah couldn’t stop the twinge she got at hearing Dean’s name.  She shifted uncomfortably, relieved that Sam couldn’t see her.  “I gotta go, Sam.  I’m about 150 miles out from Sioux Falls.  All I want is to get home and sleep.”

“I hear yah.  Don’t worry about Ben.  He’ll be fine.”

“Alright.  Thanks, Sam.”

“Anytime.”

Delilah pulled the phone away from her ear and stared absently at the call log.  Sam’s name was at the very top, right over Alex’s and Jody’s.  It was time to get back to them.  She dropped into the Dart’s bucket seat, turned the key in the ignition, the V8 engine rumbling to life with a loud purr.  “Alright you Devil, let’s go show you off to Jody.”

She released the clutch and shifted into gear, the tires gripping the road and propelling her on her way.  Her mind wandered as her eyes stared down the long rural highway, the mechanical shifting of the gears just second nature as the Nebraska farmland scrolled by at eighty miles per hour.  Before she knew it, she had crossed the Missouri river into South Dakota.  It was with a strange sense of foreboding that she sat in Jody’s driveway with the engine of the Dart idling away with its quiet rumble.

She was home, she thought tentatively.  The idea left a strange stale taste in her mouth.  She knew that beyond that door she would find people who loved her, who couldn’t wait to hear all about the inanest and insanest things in her day.  There was a teenager in that house that actually cared about her and maybe even relied on Delilah for help and advice.  The sheriff would for sure let her know exactly how she felt about Delilah taking off and not picking up a phone in three days, barely a two-word text before that.

They cared about her.  They were the ones who had picked up the pieces of her shattered life last time, they had gotten her back on her feet and functioning normally… to a certain extent.  So why was it so hard to get the fuck out of the car, her back and ass screaming to get out of the seats and stretch.

Delilah continued to sit and stare out the windshield at the ordinary faded yellow siding of Jody’s house.  She thought about the six weeks she had spent getting stone drunk every night and barely functioning.  She had barely felt human then… had she even been alive?  She had been sleepwalking, going through the motions of being a person without thought or feeling, without… a spark.

Then the Wendigo.

Then Dean.

Then saving Sam.

Then together they had saved Dean.

How could she just go back to slinking in the darkness?  How could she continue to have only a half-existence, when out there… out there people needed her to save them.  They just didn’t know it yet.  But she did.

 _Daniel hinted that Alariel had been with them for a time._   Alariel.  Neithan.

Delilah pulled her cellphone out of her pocket and stared at it.

_When you pray to me, I can hear._

“This is dumb,” Delilah thought, her mind throwing her the craziest of ideas about how she could find Neithan.  She thought back to her confession.  If she thought it was dumb, it would not work.  If she believed it would work… She had purified her own blood in that old church after all… otherwise, Dean never would have been cured.  She took a deep breath, trying to steady her heart and soul, opening herself up to the possibility that prayer and intention actually could reach the divine.  She released the air from her lungs.  “Neithan.  Alariel.  It’s me.  Delilah.  So…  um… call me. 785-555-1839.  Um…”

Delilah trailed off, unsure what else to say, unsure if he could even hear her.  Castiel had been close when he had claimed to hear her prayer.  Who knew where Neithan was.  She fixated on her phone’s screen, willing it to ring.

But it didn’t.   When a full five minutes had passed, the only sound the rumble of the engine, Delilah decided she had been stupid.  Of course, that shit wouldn’t work.  She was so fucking dumb.  She shook her head and tucked her phone back in her pocket, getting ready to turn the key in the ignition and push the car door open and head inside the house.  Her fingertips hadn’t cleared the edge of the pocket that she heard the trilling of her ring tone, the phone vibrating against her hip.

“No fucking way,” she whispered as she pulled the phone back out and stared at the caller ID: private.  She hit the green accept button and shakily put the phone to her ear.

“Delilah?” said the unmistakably shaky and cracking sound of the voice of the angel/teenager symbiote she had gotten to know at Castiel’s compound.  “I need your help.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 13 months. 103,000 words. Finally, this story is complete.  
> Thank you for your patience and your continued support guys! There's plenty more to come in Delilah's journey so subscribe to the series if you haven't already done it so that you can get notified when new stuff gets posted. As always... the music:  
> Fic Title: Sympathy for the Devil - Rolling Stones (but I like the Guns n Roses version)  
> Chapter 12: Heavy Fuel - Dire Straits  
> Chapter 14: Hair of the Dog - Nazareth  
> Chapter 15: This Ain't the Summer of Love - Blue Öyster Cult  
> Chapter 16: Dangerous Tonight - Alice Cooper  
> Chapter 17: Stranglehold - Ted Nugent  
> Chapter 18: Hell's Bells - AC/DC  
> Chapter 19: Paint It Black - Rolling Stones  
> Chapter 20: Good Times Bad Times - Led Zeppelin
> 
> You can follow my playlist on Spotify if you like the music, same name as the series ;-)
> 
> Those of you who know, I'm a part of the Fic Facer$ charity auction which is taking place this year from June 17 to 30, 2019. You can come check out the site, www.ficfacers.com to see what goodies you can bid on (including yours truly)! Also, please feel free to come check out our collection of winning stories from the 2018 auction right here on AO3. Just look for the "Fic Facer$ 2018 Auction" collection and browse through some great stuff.
> 
> I leave you with wise, emotional words from the imcomparable Mr. Ackles: "It exists guys. We feel you. And you mean a shit ton to us. You really do."
> 
> Thank you for reading.
> 
> Lisy a.k.a. SoulSurvivor_36


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